a few ?s

[bstarr]

I think I may try my hand at designing a scenario, but I have a few questions that some of you can probably answer.

First off, here’s a brief rundown of what I’m trying to do.
The overall idea of my scenario will be based on several “what ifs”. I’m going to create a grand scenario using believable ideas - historic or at least semi-historic - to create a much stronger Japan.

1) one of japans ideals was that the former European colonies would rally to them as liberators. This was met with some success, especially in Burma and India, but not enough to really effect the war. This scenario will explore the possibility of increased assistance from the “liberated” minor countries, giving Japan several units from India, Burma, Malaysia, and Siam. The Philippines may have a few axis units, but not as many since they had more in common with the anglo nations than most Asian countries (religion, for example). Also, China will remain the same, since it’s doubtful they would treat an invader as liberators.

2) the game will also explore the possibility of a much stronger pro-Japanese Manchuria. They will have their own respectable army, a small navy and air force, and greater industrial capability.

3) there was some (very little, but some nonetheless) talk prior to the war of Japan building a six or eight engine bomber that could reach Hawaii. That plan was certainly little far fetched, but I don’t see why Japan couldn’t have opted for a four engine bomber that could be used to terrorize Australia and India. I’m even going to utilize some of those unused engine types.

4) of course, everyone’s favorite – new ships. I’m going to include some of the “what if” ships of the war. Particularly the Tosa battlecruiser and the third Yamato class BB. I may even include the two “super-Yamatos”, 90000 ton monsters that were dreamed up but never made it off the drawing board.

5) I’ll also give Japan a much better pilot training system – probably still fairly low in numbers (I figure 25 to 30 for Army, and 12 to 15 for Navy), but with stats that don’t diminish with time.

6) and a few minor ideas that I’ve been tossing around. What if they had developed a decent tank? Jet aircraft? Better landing craft? Better radar? Better ASW?

7) the allies will get a bit of boost as well, since, in my opinion, a stronger Japan would have forced the allies to release more troops from Europe. Also, we might have been a little more wary of Japanese “superpower”, so I’m debating on cutting out the Pearl Harbor surprise and the “warp” turn. I may even activate Russia early.

Now the questions:
1) one problem will be the addition of axis allied troops. Although there are a few blank spots, the editor has no way of changing the nations included in the game. Although I’d rather have a separate listing for each country, I could easily make do with “SE Asia” for Burma, India, Dutch East Indies, etc; and a separate “Manchuria.” Any ideas on how to make these changes?

2) when you change the pilot rating in the editor, will it remain as is for the whole game, or change back to the game’s real stats once another year comes around? In other words, if I start in 41, when 42 rolls around, will it keep the stats I give or change to the games stats? Any idea how to give different years different ratings?

3) will the game still function if I set a higher number of turns? Considering the changes I’m going to add, it may well take the allies as long as 47 or 48 to win; if they win at all.

4) is it possible to make a reinforcement arrive as a reaction to a certain base changing hands?

5) I’m also thinking about including a “middle east” port at hex 1,1 and having all Brit reinforcements arrive there. That way I could somewhat realistically recreate the possibility of Japan conquering India, without unrealistically knocking England completely out of the war. This brings up several odd issues. Would the game accept a base created in the water? Could land units exist there? By the way, this scenario is supposed to be two-player only and a house rule will cover the invasion issue – basically, no invasions allowed.

6) any advice on “bitmap” creation? I’m not much of an artist, and not very computer-wise, either. I’ve got Coreldraw, and I tried to use it to change a B-24 side shot into a jap heavy bomber, but I couldn’t even figure out how to mirror the plane so it would face the other direction.

Any help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated. Either post here or PM me.

[Adnan Meshuggi]

well, i love your scenario...
some questions are really important and interesting for anybody else....

you could do some of your plans by speed-up the construction of ships/aircraft/groundtroops.... just give the japanese the "we prepared better for this war so our troops come into sevice 3-12 months earlier"....

the huge super-yamatos are not so smart, cause there is no logical basement for them. Another better strategy would be a general chance to refit battleships into large cve (with say 60-70 planes, but only a ordanance loadout of 300...) with a refit-time of 300 days...

so you can decide at the begining of the game to rebuild em for new carriers (say, the airforce-battleship-fraction had won)... also, you could bring in more nissin/chitose-ships and also allow them to be rebuild as "ibuki-like" 30-carriers cvl... again the player has the decision what he want to do. Give em up now and get em in early 43 or use em now.

With the stronger army idea, well, if we have this china-problem, it sounds bad to put in more strengh into the japanese army... only if the defence values would be doubled for all troops, so to assault the enemy you need a lot troops (=logistical problems...)

the tank, the japanese had a well designed (for japanese conditions) medium tank, it was equal to the shermans and had been a nasty surprise for the allies if they had to deal with. But against the russians, it is not worth a lot.

For the not hitable british hex, great idea... so your ships could not be taken by surprise without a chance to react.

your scenario seems to need a stronger allied situation, maybe better values for the spitfires (i think they are way too low) and more planes (cause the allies will put into this area more material... )

myself is testing such scenario (simple, huge surplus for the japanese, i even improved the ships with tons of flak) for an allied vers japanese ai-scenario... but i think it is designed too good. after 2 weeks of maximum battle in burma (airbattle in a head to head, the allies are down to exp. 35 and the japanese loose in a 4:1 ratio... against the brits. So i need a little more finetuning... i still want to defeat the japanese...

the biggest problem i see is that the ai will mess up your "improvements".... i did a quick check and found out that the japanese ai did not use the extra 10 CVE-(48 Airplanes, one LARGE Fightergroup)... if i use em as a human they work perfectly, the ai ignore em. So my idea seems to be only able for human vers human, and here the japanese will kill all allies in a few months...

another Problem with the editor seems the "loss of ships"-factor... as i see it in the moment, the japanese loose ships to the nirvana. i could not find out if they are lost cause of a bug (so i lost Junyo and Hiyo, both as Tahio-class designed in my scenario, but i did not forgot to make the tahio.class as 1941-design... also, Tahio itself (i speeded her up to check it) came into service without problems....)

so you will need a lot tests or your design will have some nasty problems

also, did you see the "ships upgrade into nirvana" bug ? it is quite fun to redo any ship-upgrades cause in by game the computer added one number to all ship-upgrades... the effect was fantastic ! i got 40 akagi-class cv´s with 18 knots maximum speed... [:D]

[bstarr]

Yeah, the allies will also get a serious boost. I mean, let's face it, if Japan had all these added abilities, it only would have meant more allied troops deployed in the pacific. If this scen works like I'm hoping, then Japan will still lose the war in the long run, it will just take longer and more troops. And the war may see new interesting turns like landings in Hawaii, armored clashes in India, and heavy bombers pummeling Sydney. However, once the allies get their head of steam, they inevitably will start creeping back across the Pacific. (by the way, another key to this game is the "continue playing" feature that will be added with the next patch. There's no doubt that Japan will get enough victory points to win, but "house rules" will keep the game going after that point)

One of the keys to making this game work would be developing reactionary reinforcements where when certain hexes fall the allies get certain reinforcements, but I can't figure out how to do it. I may have the units already existing but activated by more house rules.

Oh, and I've come up with a possible abstract solution to the China problem. Certain rear area Chinese cities will have "inland CD" units. Basically these will be whopping big experienced units armed to the teeth, also armed with static weapons - this way they can't be moved around the board and used offensively. They "represent" everything from guerilla warfare in the japs rear to an unheard of unity of China against Japan, but basically what they will do is keep China in the game.

The biggest problem I have in getting started is figuring out how to make Japanese allies. I really hate just to use Jap units and call them Manchurian or whatever, but the editor doesn't have a way to change nationalities from those selected. any ideas here? Know anybody who might hack a fix . . . without warping the game? With my luck I'd think the game was fixed, but every time I tried to click on a unit the screen would change to Atari Pong. [;)]

[bstarr]

I think I have a new idea that may make this work, but I'm going to toss it around in my head before I toss it out into public.

Anyway, I'm going to wait until Tankerace's War Plan Orange comes out before I try anything. He's got more experience than myself, so I figure I probably can get some ideas from his scenario.

[Tankerace]

LOL, thanks, I'm flattered. But If I were you I'd mess around with it now. The best way to learn the editors (a la how I am doing my mod) is fiddle with it, break it, and then frantically try to put it back together. Lol, I have done that soo many times.I think if you tie in your ideas, and use scenario 15 as a starting reference point, you could make one really good scenario. If the Japanese get the SUper Yamato and the B-65 designs, then the Allies are going to be in a good load of trouble.

[bstarr]

I've already changed to another idea . . . and this time the French are involved. I'm going to toss it around a while, but I have a hypothetical scenario idea that may give players an enteresting new twist, yet remain somewhat almost nearly partially kinda-sorta semi-historic.

Anyway, I've ordered books and stuff for research, now I have to figure a way to hide the credit card reciepts from my wife. I can hear her now: "You spent how much on what!?"