Hairog's Questions for Developers for WWIII 1946

[Hairog]

First question of many.

Using the map editor how would I make it so the Soviet Satellite states...

Albania
Bulgaria
Czchoslovak
East Germany
Poland
Romania
Hungary
Yugoslovia

are controlled by the USSR but owned by their respective countries. I don't understand what the little check boxes mean. The don't seem go do anything. What do the radial buttons mean? I suppose I could make them all Soviet territory but that would not be any fun.

[doomtrader]

You are asking about the editor, right?

Let's leave the original owner on the side now.

We have owner and controller left.
Difference between owner and controller is something similar between owning a car and renting a car.

The game engine does not allows any country to exist if it doesn't control any VP. So if you will set up those countries to be owned by them, and controlled by USSR, then in the first turn the game will end for them (theoretically, because we never tested such situation).
Originally this mechanism (controlling) was created for allowing to check progress in conquests. SO if you control all VP owned by your enemy he lose the game.

What I can propose is that you make those countries with low Diplomatic Strength (20 or so) and USSR with high DS (100), then if a Soviet unit will for example enter West Germany territory from East Germany territory (and USSR and East Germany are in comitern), then conquered territory will be seceded to Soviet union.
Also to represent satellites dependency, you can create some events that will transfer some of the PP from them to USSR. (ie if PP poll of Poland is higher than 50, then 20 is transfered to USSR).

If this is still not clear, let me know.

[Hairog]

How about this...?
 
I make the satellites Soviet territory except for the VP cities thus leaving them as viable countries. The Soviets could then run around in them and use them without having them disappear or count as far as victory conditions are concerned. Would that work?
 
As you can see I'm trying to avoid diplomacy and special events because I don't understand them as yet.

[doomtrader]

Events are your friends

That was second solution I was about to propose and I think it should work.

[Hairog]

Cool. I'll try it out.

[Hairog]

OK I got the VP of each satellite country under that countries control. All the remainder of the country are Soviet. Hopefully that produces what we want.

I'm now continuing to move units around using the units from Godderdam... scenario except for the Germans of course they are down to virtually nothing.

The US will have 22 divisions and I think I'll keep them as divisions but a huge number of PPs per turn. The Brits will have 15 divsions, the French 7 and the Turks will have 45 very weak divisions. All this comes from a book "America's War Plans" and is what the Joint Chiefs estimated.

I'll let you know how things progress.

[doomtrader]

It doesn't look bad, but you would give a chance first proposition?
If you want I might script for you an example event which will transfer PP from Poland to USSR. With full description of how it works and what is responsible for what. What do you say?

[Hairog]

That would be great. I have no idea of how events work and could not make much sense of the tutorial. I am not a programmer so I am not familiar with many of the terms I guess.

Thank you for all you help so far.

[doomtrader]

I'm also not a programmer, I'm educated in sociology.
So about the event you might start here:
http://forum.wastelands-interactive.com ... php?t=1927

[Hairog]

Thank you for the link to the tutorial. I already went there and I'm sorry to say it didn't help. I still don't understand how to make Special Events and what triggers them etc.

This section in particular might as well be written in Polish.

<condition> - in this section are entered all requirements for event, to properly build conditions, logical opeartors <AND> and <OR> can be used.

<expression> - all expressions use methods which allows to build condition for event. Expression consist following parts:

<leftOperand> - check method is entered here.

paramX – integers for the method, note that every method has its own order of integers.

<operator> - it’s used for describing should the method be lesser, equal, or greater than value given in rightOperand.

I have no idea what this stuff is trying to tell me. Sorry but I need more input to learn.

[Hairog]

Thank you for the link to the tutorial. I already went there and I'm sorry to say it didn't help. I still don't understand how to make Special Events and what triggers them etc.

This section in particular might as well be written in Polish.

<condition> - in this section are entered all requirements for event, to properly build conditions, logical opeartors <AND> and <OR> can be used.

<expression> - all expressions use methods which allows to build condition for event. Expression consist following parts:

<leftOperand> - check method is entered here.

paramX – integers for the method, note that every method has its own order of integers.

<operator> - it’s used for describing should the method be lesser, equal, or greater than value given in rightOperand.

I have no idea what this stuff is trying to tell me. Sorry but I need more input to learn.

[doomtrader]

OK, I'll prepare an example for you later today.
In the mean time you can go to the data/events/ folder and see how events look like

[doomtrader]

Take a look here:
http://forum.wastelands-interactive.com ... php?t=2299

[Hairog]

Sorry doomtrader. If this project depends on me learning Special Events then we are doomed. I mess with a few and got totally frustrated. I'm too old for this.

I'm not a detail orientated person and proof reading and spelling are not one of my skills. I get paid quite a bit to be a big ideas guy and to come up with innovative ideas.

I can help with where the AI should attack or do the research on how many divisions the Soviets were believed to have committed to an attack on Iran etc. but anything that has to do with double checking syntax or if I have an extra space in my logic stream...I'm useless. Sorry.

I'll continue to mess with the map and setup the units but Special Events are beyond my time constraints.

[doomtrader]

No problem Hairog.
This is your project and forcing you to do something that I would not like to do.

If you will have any questions, please feel free to post them, I'll be happy to answer [:)]

[Hairog]

Thanks for your help so far. Let me know if there is anything I can do you assist you (within my abilities) to make this scenario work. Mean while I'll keep plodding on with the OOB and such.

By the way Uxbridge and a few others are playing his ETO scenario and having a good time. We are having trouble with Special Events crashing the game however. Hopefully he will figure it out.

[doomtrader]

Show me the event that crashes the game.

Post any ideas that comes to your mind. Even 'what if' game needs some story and backround.

[Hairog]

This is how the US Joint Chiefs of Staff predicted that the Soviets would invade. These are Google maps with the number of divisions the timeline that they expected the Soviets to achieve.



Interesting to note that they expected more resistance from the Turks than the Western Allies. I guess this is because the Western Allies had less than 36 half strength division while the Turks had 47 full divisions but with older equipment.

The Western divisions would be a 50% at level 3 where as the Turks would be 100% at level 1 with a few level 2. The Soviets on the other hand would be 100% level 3 across the board. The satellites would be 100% at level 2.

[doomtrader]

What about the name of those divisions?

Also the difference between Soviet forces predicted advance in the Western Europe and Turkey is the terrain. Europe from Vistula to the West is quite flat, the only obstacle seems to be in Ardennes, Turkey is a very rough terrain, mostly mountains, rocky hills, more less like Death Valley in Nevada.
Also next thing is the infrastructure and supplies accessibility. Europe is dense populated and with good road and rail system (even after the WW2). In Turkey it is much harder to travel.

[Hairog]

Good points all and it is well modeled in TOW. I'm very glad to see that attacking through Turkey it is not deemed impossible like in a few games I've seen. Some designers think that just because it did't happen in real life that it was impossible. Then they have to figure out ways to model and tweak their systems to simulate actual events such as the Japanese taking of Singapore and Eben-Emael.

Gibraltar has alway bugged me. I really think that with the power of the Luffies, Italian Navy, siege guns etc. that it would not be impossible to take as many have contended. The history of supposed impregnable fortresses is not very good.

Your point about supplies accessibility is spot on in regaurds to both fronts. I've had several discussion on other websites with people who contend that the Soviets would run out of supplies a long time before the reached the Atlantic coast because Europe was a burned out hulk. My contention is is that there would be plenty of military stores still left over from the end of WWII in huge supply depots similar to what the Germans were counting on during The Bulge. This idea is shared by the US JCS and their planners and accounts for the rapid rate at which they felt Western Europe would fall.

A number of conversation hinge on the importance of Lend Lease. From what I've read it was greatly over hyped by western media. Some contend that the Soviets would have shriveled up and wasted away without it. From what I have read it never accounted for more then 10% if that of their logistics. While significant it is hardly an army stopper. By the time period of May 1946 the Soviets would have all the Lend Lease equipment they needed to progress as fast and as furious as the US war plans proposed.

I'm working on more detailed maps based on US War Plans written in 1946-1947 that try and predict where and how fast the assault would be. Hopefully someone can use these to program the AI. [:'(]

Another selling point on this scenario is the speed of how it could be played out. Basically all sides have the forces they are going to have for the coming conflict already produced. The Soviets have it immediately available for use whereas the Allies have it in mothballs ready to be deployed in a 6 months or less. All that equipment, supplies and manpower that was scheduled for the invasion of Japan is just waiting to be used for a counter attack ... but where and how?

I predict that most games would last less than a year with none of the build up/research busy works needed. The US has at the most 6 atomic bombs, just enough divisions to slow down and eventually halt the Soviets in the Pyrenees Mountains and 50 highly mobile and amphibious divisions that can strike anywhere at anytime and a huge bomber and fighter force to strike at the PPs of the Soviets. But from where is the question.