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Russian Steel 1.1 is headed towards Fabio Prado for upload to his great site. I hit the send button moments ago so it's up to the Gods of the Internet...

First of all, thanks for all of your interest and support.

Please keep the feedback coming and if anyone has finished several battles, please post your results (win-loss-final points) if you don't mind.

Keep an eye on the forum for Fabio's announcement - for now, here's an idea of what will be in Russian Steel 1.1:

RS 1.1 Features:

- A new battle by a new (to the Collective) designer. William Rusco
(Bill?) has considerable design work in the Pacific theater (Watchtower)
and his initial effort here in central Russian is wonderful!! I think
you will really enjoy this one. It fits in between our original battles
4 and 5 and gives your troops "something to do" while they wait for
Guderian to come back North.

- 3 more battles from the Russian Steel storyline - the initial Moscow
counterstroke by Penetrator with one-of-a-kind units and massive
challenge. Two Kaluga battles - in the first you are attacking, and in
the second you are attacking....but so are the Germans!!

- 4 branching battles courtesy of Stuart (aka Major Destruction)

- Rebuilds of original battles 3 (Slonim), 5 (Orel Meeting), and 6 (Tula
Delay) to ensure that crews will pop out of damaged vehicles properly
(warning: a player with a core of over 55 units may not see crews
because of unit limit constraints)

- 3 other battles have had significant rework thanks to playtesters such
as Resisti who spotted mistakes and sent them in. Thanks!

- All battles are adjusted for 7.1 and build points are reduced. The
initial core is now 1700 points. One of SPWAW 7.1's features reduced
the cost of Soviet units considerably and led to balance and no-crew
issues. This version of RS 1.1 should be much more challenging in that
respect. If you started RS 1.0 under 7.1 you should consider restarting
in order to get better challenge.

- Reinforcement are set to zero after the first three battles. There
are AUX units in every battles, in some cases many and insome cases just
a few. Every mission can be carried out by a combined-arms core force
of 55 units or less.

- Trucks are always provided in some way for your guns. Support points
are set (for most battles) at 105 which is exactly enough to buy 3
medium truck platoons for your guns. Some battles with limited movement
provide 70 support points for trucks. Some battles have zero support
points because AUX trucks are provided. If you want more than 15 guns,
you'll need to buy trucks.

A now for a Sneak Peek at RS 1.2 - release in late May.
- Battle 13: Attack Partially completed German fortifications
- Battle 14: Assault German hedgehog position
- Battle 15: Rescue paratroopers behind enemy lines
- Battle 16: Breakthrough a line held by German minor allies
- Battle 17: Exploit a bridgehead and survive a violent Panzer
counterattack
- Battle 18: Fight your way back to friendly lines against Panzers in
the woods

- We have two Stalingrad battle settings for new designers with maps and
some units purchased but not deployed. If you can complete a design in
three-four weeks using these elements then please contact me at
brad.darroch@trw.com for an assignment.

Thanks!

All I can say is

Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!

Originally posted by RussianSteelDar
Russian Steel 1.1 is headed towards Fabio Prado for upload to his great site. I hit the send button moments ago so it's up to the Gods of the Internet...

W%t!

First of all, thanks for all of your interest and support.

Please keep the feedback coming and if anyone has finished several battles, please post your results (win-loss-final points) if you don't mind.

I just started battle 4, the Pripet marshes (it rocks!), and I've noticed something that came up in LV discussions: my T-28s look like T-34s, but are armed with 45mm guns. Somewhow this doesn't seem as buggy when you're playing the *Russians*, but I thought I'd mention it. Oh, and since you're the author: why is visbility 1 hex in the clear-cuts? Rolling terrain? I used to live the PNW, and the clear-cuts there are like extremely stumpy meadows in the midst of forests. If anything, the terrain it's most like is "rocky" -- bad for vehicles, full of good cover (thick stumps). Perhaps I should open it up in the editor before I ask such fool questions.

Jeff

I can't tell you how much respect i have for the guys that pulled this project off. It is a tremendous amount of work (i know, because i tried and couldn't do it).

Now it is our turn - to play it. Lets make sure all of the designers/producers get the acknowledgement they deserve. Post those AAR’s (designers love them), send constructive comments, post ideas here. I don’t think the term Campaign Collective was meant to limit participation.

Finally, use these guys as an example to start your own campaign group. The more designers out there for SPWAW, the more battles/maps/campaigns for all of us to enjoy. All of this experience should transfer over to CA/CL.

Re: visibility in "clear cuts"....

I used "plowed fields" terrain for these "clear cuts" - just standard terrain...dunno the rationale behind the visibility of 1 hex - sometimes it seems odd and sometimes it fits the situation...

lots of brush and stumps and second-growth would certainly allow people to sneak quite well...


--------------

General note:

When Fabio enables the upload, this will be a reload of campaign 22 with a new UCAMP file and new battles...only battles 1-12 are "populated" with .dat and .cmt files (as well as branches, ie slots 35-40)...

If you are underway, you should only NEED to reload the UCAMP and the battles in slots 9, 10, 11 and 35-40 - these represent the new material and the branches...

I am pretty sure you'll want to do a complete overwrite because of the bug fixes (i.e. strange tanks...t26s masquerading as T34s) and such and the rebuilds of battle 3, 5, 6...

As always, I am happy to help with loading issues and with what little Windows knowledge (gained the hard way) I have...

Originally posted by A_B

Finally, use these guys as an example to start your own campaign group.

By all means do. BUT: Don't start out unless you feel confident you have the necessary human resources on hand. And to people signing up for a project of this kind: If you are not certain that you can deliver what you set out to do, then don't. This particular project ended up with a crushing workload on a very few people, although of course many made valuable contributions in smaller volume.

Pioneers: Balance your desires against reality.

Followers: Don't start out without 100% motivation.

This is easier said than done of course.

A_B - thanks - you get the credit for launching this effort and getting it past the "yeah, its a good idea" stage and actually getting designers harnessed to battles...

Reminds me to post something from the original Russian Steel readme file (available in full at Fabio's site):

"Acknowledgement:

Thanks to A_B and Gallo Rojo for the original idea and getting this thing going.

Thanks to Penetrator for restarting this when it stalled.

Thanks to MATRIX Games, without whom none of this would be possible.

Thanks to Wild Bill for showing that it could be done.

Thanks to Stuart for his patience and insight and endurance.

Thank to all our designers (ahem, and there's more to do, fellows!).

Thanks to the SPWAW player community - you folks are the best!
And, thank you for taking the time to play our campaign.

We hope you enjoy it!"



To paraphrase:

"It takes a Collective" (sorry Hillary) : )

Cheers.

To add to Penetrator's observation:

include at least one person on the team with masochistic tendencies and dogged perseverance and just the right touch of brain damage...

:p

and t(h)anks for your wonderful job...

One day panzers will fear my IS2 !!!!

Brilliant News!Been waiting for the update before I started my campaign....Shame about the points allocation....Struggled to get a decent balanced force with 2000....now the Comrade General strips me of 15%....No commisar!I wasn't complaining...merely commenting on the Party's wisdom in conserving our manpower so that not as many are kil...er...subjected to the seductions of the capitalist German propaganda! Thanks guys...Looking forward to it!

Originally posted by Tazman85
Brilliant News!Been waiting for the update before I started my campaign....Shame about the points allocation....Struggled to get a decent balanced force with 2000....now the Comrade General strips me of 15%....No commisar!I wasn't complaining...merely commenting on the Party's wisdom in conserving our manpower so that not as many are kil...er...subjected to the seductions of the capitalist German propaganda! Thanks guys...Looking forward to it!

As far as the party is concerned, Stalin really changed his tune in winter 1941. He realized that under fire soldiers couldn't care less for the party (as mass surrenders of soviets in the summer have shown), so he started pushing the whole patriotic angle. War for the fatherland, fascist beasts, enslavers. Of course, by that time, the Germans managed to commit numerous atrocities, and Hitler issued his directives to enslave the western part of USSR, which made the Soviet propaganda true for once.

Suggestions:

I think the debriefings should reflect the change i.e. "We shall avenge the burning of Smolensk." Also I think that early briefings should mention the military genius of comrade Stalin, and his brilliant plan.

Originally posted by White Phosphorus


I think the debriefings should reflect the change i.e. "We shall avenge the burning of Smolensk." Also I think that early briefings should mention the military genius of comrade Stalin, and his brilliant plan.

This is something I agree with completely. Unfortunately, the text introductions have held a low priority, unerstandably perhaps. But if there is anyone willing to tackle that matter in a holistic manner, then so much the better. Contact Darroch.

Text is a low priority until all the battles are through version 1.0 at least.

I have the complete Battle listing with all texts available in MS WORD (or other if you tell me your preferences)...

If an author wanted to they could work the text from start to finish and then I could cut-and-paste it into future releases...

I would love to have someone who knows Russian slang provide some authentic vocabulary for instance...

Volunteers are ALWAYS welcome at the Collective.

Your Dacha is waiting, Comrade.

How do these battles fit together....ie would the first buch of battles be considered a campaign unto themselves with future battles being a campaign as well.....or is it best to wait for all the battles and play them all together in a continuous fashion?
thanks for all your work!

Without wasting any time:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/spwaw_camps06.htm

Or download directly: http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/SPWAW-Campaigns/RS1.1entire.zip

Have fun, fellas!:D

Fab

Pops:

You should start playing this campaign now. We will roll out additional games until we run out of steam - I can't tell you when that is.

I am committed to getting the first 35 battles released. I'll probably stick with it to the bitter end. I have a storyboard that gets us across the Dnieper in October 1943...having got that far, I pretty much have to do Bagration (June 1944)...

And then there's Hungary with the Royal Tigers and SS Panzers...

But you now have 13 battles to play and another 6 will be released in about 3 weeks...

There are 16 more that are designed and ened to be finalized (read debugged)


The Collective will need fresh troops this Summer so be ready to answer the call!

To Fabio:

Thank you. You make this possible.

Brad

What a campaign!
I'm enjoing it so much!
I just finished the third battle and it was so intense!
Try to escape with Jerries in my back!

I feel guilty, because to let my core forces and trucks escape I had to sacrifice almost all my poor AUX coscript .
I managed a draw (12.006 to 5.229), with heavy losses on both sides (636 to 1111 man, 16 to 38 APC).
Really thanks to all people involved in this project!:D

Regards.

EL Peco:

Very glad to hear you had "fun" in battle 3.

Penetrator really tweaked that one up...

Keep us posted on your progress and how you feel about your gaming experience...

Critical things to know:
- Too many points?
- Too hard? Too easy?
- Core force too elite and getting boring..?

Thanks for the feedback.

B

T"h"anks, Your team is doing a great job!