Red Front for ToT

[MacGalleo]

ok, have a good test....

[AGRICOLA]

I'm confused . . . . . as usual. Is this supposed to be a simple conversion of RF 1.4 to TOT with minimal tweaks or a major reworking with changes to the fundamentals of the scen?

After playing a couple of turns, comparing German progress in RF TOT to what they did in my best RF 1.4 game and finally being forced to look at events to try to sort out what happened, I can only conclude that this can best be described as an untested alpha of a completely new scen. As it stands, the scen is so unbalanced that it is unplayable.

The key problem is that I can see no way to defend against a German onslaught that is fuelled by 12 units, including 2 Stukas, being spawned whenever they capture a Soviet city. In RF 1.4 and 1.5, where spawning is triggered by the destruction of German or Soviet units, players have the viable option of either refusing combat or adopting a scorched earth strategy or some combination of these.

The numbers tell the story. In my game of RF 1.4 Germany started with ~35 Stukas, in August the number dropped to 25 and by December only 5 remained despite a 1:1 replacement ratio if one was killed. As total losses were only 9 aircraft, obviously, a large number had crashed because they ran out of fuel and were not counted as killed. Just the same, the Soviets were extremely hard pressed to withstand the German attacks.

RF TOT starts with ~57 Stukas and by August the number has increased to 69, despite losing 12 planes. There is no way that the Soviets can handle this arial onslaught. By August the Germans have conquered the Crimea; captured Kaluga, the last city before Moscow; the Caucasus is in immediate danger because Kerch is full paras and there are no defenders left in Stavropol and Krasnodar and but a single one in Maikop; and Leningrad probably cannot be held, even if 2 minefields are completed.

The problem, as I see it, is that this scen is completely dominated by the Luftwaffe whereas, in practice, the German Air Force was spread pretty thinly over a very long front. Again, numbers tell the story. In August '41, in RF 1.4 the Luftwaffe had a total of ~115 a/c whereas in RF TOT the total is ~200, almost twice as many. Game over.

I'll add a few suggestions when I have taken another look at the game.

[MacGalleo]

@agricola
You are right, I replayed twice this part since yesterday. The Luftwaffe is far too powerful.
But you raised an interesting question. How far can we go in the transformation of this scenario?
From the way the free units spawned by Events files in 1.4, early or late the "too many units" bug returns.
I am looking for a way to spawn these units minimizing that risk.
But if there are limits that must not be crossed in the transformation. We should define them.
I will make some changes in the first Events file to rebalance the game.

[AGRICOLA]

If there is a simple 1 for 1 replacement of only some key unit types that are killed, there should be no problem with too many units. The weak Soviet units do not cause very many German casualties in the first 6 turns and such minor attrition will gradually slightly decrease the total number of German units throughout the summer, exactly what you want.

I don't know how you have improved the GOTO's, but the bulk of the German ground forces advance considerably faster and in a more organized fashion than in RF 1.4.

Rather than only a dozen or so German units being active during the ghost turn as in RF 1.4, RF TOT has all German forces engaged. Two complete turns for all German units before the Soviets are able to do anything contributes a great deal to the Soviet's problems.

Have you considered stackable terrain so that there are not repeated popups of 2, 3 ,4, 5 and 6 units killed at once? Early in the game this would help the Soviets but later, when it came time to attack across the Don to get at Stalingrad and the Caucasus, it would significantly aid the Germans who are bound to be stacked up at any river crossing.

[MacGalleo]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
If there is a simple 1 for 1 replacement of only some key unit types that are killed, there should be no problem with too many units. The weak Soviet units do not cause very many German casualties in the first 6 turns and such minor attrition will gradually slightly decrease the total number of German units throughout the summer, exactly what you want.

We must strike a balance: to avoid the "too many units bug" and not weaken the Germans too.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I don't know how you have improved the GOTO's, but the bulk of the German ground forces advance considerably faster and in a more organized fashion than in RF 1.4.

I used the same method as for the lufwaffe. I encouraged the three branches of the German attack toward three goals: Leningrad, Moscow and Sevastopol.
But I must reduce the German air force.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Have you considered stackable terrain so that there are not repeated popups of 2, 3 ,4, 5 and 6 units killed at once? Early in the game this would help the Soviets but later, when it came time to attack across the Don to get at Stalingrad and the Caucasus, it would significantly aid the Germans who are bound to be stacked up at any river crossing.

It 's an interesting idea, but do we change the units stats?
I like Nemo's units stats. I think it 's well-balanced.

[Boco]

FWIW

MacG is right, adding stackable terrain is going to force a shift that will require significant playtesting. Since the balance will be finely tuned, you'll likely need a house rule forbidding fortress pillaging.

If you go this route, I'll bring up another detail (forgive me if it's an obvious one). Current wisdom (Great Library: CivII combat) has it that the fortress bonus works against all land units (including howitzers), but not air and sea units.

[Blue Lion]

What is about the no-stack-kills modification of Skyer for Civ2 ?

[Boco]

I haven't tested Skyer's "No Stack Kill" patch for ToT (post 81). Has anyone else? Is it compatible with Timbatron's patch to save CPU use? I'm a little paranoid that we may tie this RF to an unstable version of ToT. If, on the other hand, this is bug-free, then we should take advantage of it!

[Blue Lion]

I haven´t tested this fix. But I have tested Skyer 2´s no-raze-patch for Civ 3 and this patch was very stable.

[AGRICOLA]

A.

Originally posted by MacGalleo
We must strike a balance: to avoid the "too many units bug" and not weaken the Germans too.

I see your point. But how about replacing as many unit types as you consider necessary on a 1:1 basis when they are killed. The Germans have significant numbers [>20 units] of only 14 attack types.
Also, regardless of where a unit is killed, its replacement will generally spawn right in the thick of the action, thus maintaining attack strength.

Should testing show that one of the 3 army groups always tends to lag, you can always reinforce it with one or more units each turn.


B.
There are two extremely significant changes that you have made to RF 1.4 that absolutely screw up the Soviets,and the scen.
1. They cannot build ships, especially freighters, during the summer of '41.
2. Airfields as city improvements can never be built.

The Soviets have been immobilized to all intents and purposes. There is no recognition of the existence of the Trans-Siberian RR which allowed them to move factories to the east and bring troops and built vehicles to the front from the Urals and points east.

At present, the only fast way to get reinforcements from the Urals and eastern USSR to the front in time to do any good is airlifting from from Sverdlovsk. That means only 1 unit per month. In RF 1.4, the Volga provides fast transportation to both the Moscow and Stalingrad areas.

I have always considered that airlifts are the way that CIV2 allows a designer to model the speed of RR's without running into problems with the infinite carrying capacity of RR's.


C. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHERE WE ARE TRYING TO GO WITH THE RF REDUX

It is beginning to appear that in addition to absolutely needed changes [too many units, the partisan loophole, a real Stalingrad and Caucasus campaign, a Kursk offensive, mines to blockade rivers and an improved German defense plan in '43-'45, etc.] other changes are being introduced which upset the fine balance of RF 1.4. Changes like those in B. above appear pointless and seem to be designed to fix non-existent problems. The same applies to changing from supply convoys to shipping military units, additional house rules [Captain Nemo did not have a single house rule in RF 1.4. He was prepared to have players exercise their skill and imagination even if it made the scen easy] that stifle any attempt at original playand changing the tech tree and unit availability.

Right now it looks like there are so many simultaneous untested changes that it is impossible to tell what the ramifications of each one will be. Months of work and testing by Mac Galleo will be required before the scen is ready for playtesting by others.

I would recommend that:
1. Everything in RF 1.4 that does not absolutely scream to be changed be left as is. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
2. That any changes be as minor as possible.
3. Eliminating the partisan problem and blockading rivers are trivial tasks.
4. That what MacGalleo has done to reduce the initial number of German units plus a spawning approach similar to what I have outlined in A and would serve to eliminate 'too many units' by maintaining the Germans at a relatively constant strength and offers the means for any fine tuning of German offensive strength.
5. The Stalingrad/Caucasus offensive depends on the ability of the Germans to capture Rostov and/or to get across the Don despite the best defensive efforts of the Soviets. This can be accomplished with a few events. After that, whatever related events are in RF 1.4 can continue the campaign.
6. The Kursk offensive is really a generic term for any major German attack(s) in 1943. By using flags it should be possible to launch one or more German counterattacks where they might do the most good.
7. Adding a reactive German defence in '43 - '45 should be relatively simple.

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Boco
I haven't tested Skyer's "No Stack Kill" patch for ToT (post 81). Has anyone else? Is it compatible with Timbatron's patch to save CPU use? I'm a little paranoid that we may tie this RF to an unstable version of ToT. If, on the other hand, this is bug-free, then we should take advantage of it!

I'd be a bit careful about Skyer's patches. His no 'too many units' patch for MGE worked fine as long as the scen was designed on a PC with the patch. A similar patch for TOT did not seem to work.

[techumseh]

If anyone can direct me to a copy of Nemo's original Red Front, with the updated graphics, I would like to put it up on my site, in the "Conversions" section. http://www.tecumseh.150m.com/ If a new version is completed, and tests out successfully, I would be happy to host it as well.

In the meantime, with all due respect, this "redesign by committee" has been tried three times before, and has always fizzled out. If a revised ToT version is desired, it might make more sense to start from scratch.

[MacGalleo]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
I would recommend that:
1. Everything in RF 1.4 that does not absolutely scream to be changed be left as is. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
2. That any changes be as minor as possible.
3. Eliminating the partisan problem and blockading rivers are trivial tasks.
4. That what MacGalleo has done to reduce the initial number of German units plus a spawning approach similar to what I have outlined in A and would serve to eliminate 'too many units' by maintaining the Germans at a relatively constant strength and offers the means for any fine tuning of German offensive strength.
5. The Stalingrad/Caucasus offensive depends on the ability of the Germans to capture Rostov and/or to get across the Don despite the best defensive efforts of the Soviets. This can be accomplished with a few events. After that, whatever related events are in RF 1.4 can continue the campaign.
6. The Kursk offensive is really a generic term for any major German attack(s) in 1943. By using flags it should be possible to launch one or more German counterattacks where they might do the most good.
7. Adding a reactive German defence in '43 - '45 should be relatively simple.

Ok, I will be back from the beginning and follow your recommandations and reduce to a minimum the changes needed.

Although you refuse to admit it, your explanations are worthy of a project manager.

[MacGalleo]

Can you confirm this information?

"The P-39 Airacobras first entered service with the Soviet Air Force in May of 1942. "

[Blue Lion]

Originally posted by MacGalleo
Can you confirm this information?

"The P-39 Airacobras first entered service with the Soviet Air Force in May of 1942. "

In Gary Grigsby´s Computergame "Second Front" (SSI) this typ is available with the 27th march 1942.

About 5.000 of these planes were transfered to Russia, mostly via Persia.