Red Front for ToT

[techumseh]

Great. Any idea when that will be?

[fairline]

I've just received Curt's last file. I'll sort them out and it will be either today or tomorrow pending checking my final copy with Curt.

[AGRICOLA]

@MacGalleo

I have gone through both RF 1.4 and RF TOT and tabulated the units in the .scn files at the start of the scens to see what and where you have made changes in units. IMHO, you have done such good a job of reducing the total units that, with a few additional changes, it should be safe to use all the spawning events from RF 1.4.

Here's a summary of the numbers:
RF 1.4
German units = 899
Soviet units = 839
Total units = 1823

RF TOT
German units = 754
Soviet units = 839
Total units = 1668 a decrease of 155 units,

This leaves 2048-1688 = 360 empty slots in the units table. This is much better than the 205 empty slots in RF 1.4. I think that there are 100 more slots that can be freed up as follows:

1. The 77 new Hedgehog II's can safely be disbanded. The problem of improving the German defences will be taken care of by reactive defence events in '43-'45. The reactive defence thread is at

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164722

If you are not familiar with the concept, the thread contains excellent posts about the 'randomize' event parameter that is available in TOT.

2. I think that the 6 Swedish AA units can safely be disbanded.
3. There are a few Red Army units in eastern USSR and some doomed Red Army stacks, such as the one NE of Kishinev, that can be eliminated without compromising the scen.

Overall, it should be possible to create 460 empty units slots in the units table. That should be more than enough to avoid too many units, no matter what players do.


@Eivind IV

I personally see no particular reason to play the 1.4 version that, with what has been discovered regarding flaws and tricks by Agricola and the likes, will only end prematurely in a certain Soviet victory.

Please, let's show some respect for 'the likes', in this case Xin Yu and FM Klesh whose brilliant analyses have provided me with so much inspiration.

Sorry, but you are absolutely, completely and utterly wrong about 'only to end prematurely in a certain Soviet victory'. That is exactly what MacGalleo is working on to prevent by closing both intended and unintended loopholes and countering overly effective strategies that player's have discovered. In addition, the much more powerful TOT events language will allow such things as a Stalingrad/Caucasus and a Kursk offensive that actually work and a greatly improved German defence from 1943 onwards.

Sigh! No more scorched earth, partisan armies or naval invasions up the Danube and/or the Rhine.

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA @Eivind IV
Please, let's show some respect for 'the likes', in this case Xin Yu and FM Klesh whose brilliant analyses have provided me with so much inspiration.

I ment no disrepsect to Xin Yu or FMK. Forgive my insolence.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
Sorry, but you are absolutely, completely and utterly wrong about 'only to end prematurely in a certain Soviet victory'. That is exactly what MacGalleo is working on to prevent by closing both intended and unintended loopholes and countering overly effective strategies that player's have discovered. In addition, the much more powerful TOT events language will allow such things as a Stalingrad/Caucasus and a Kursk offensive that actually work and a greatly improved German defence from 1943 onwards.

This is good news either way!

[MacGalleo]

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
1. The 77 new Hedgehog II's can safely be disbanded. The problem of improving the German defences will be taken care of by reactive defence events in '43-'45. The reactive defence thread is at

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=164722

Excellent suggestion, these units have no interest in the early part. Moreover, they were not included in the original version 1.4.
This thread is very interesting, I wasn't familiar with the concept about the 'randomize' event parameter that is available in TOT. This can be very useful for all scenario designer .

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
2. I think that the 6 Swedish AA units can safely be disbanded.

Good idea, this is a minor change that does not alter the scenario.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
3. There are a few Red Army units in eastern USSR and some doomed Red Army stacks, such as the one NE of Kishinev, that can be eliminated without compromising the scen.

Yes, we could disband some Red Army in the Eastern USSR. On the other hand I wonder about these doomed Red Army stacks : these units have a role to play in the arrival of German units spawned by the events file.

Originally posted by AGRICOLA
it should be safe to use all the spawning events from RF 1.4.

We could also adopt the solution 1 unit killed = 1 unit spawned. For example :
[list=1][*]killed : Red Army spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Leningrad[*]killed : Wehrmacht spawned : PzKw III Panzer dest : Novgorod replaced by killed : T-28 spawned : PzKw III Panzer dest : Novgorod [*]killed : Partisans spawned : 105mm "Wespe" dest : Kholm[*]killed : Ju-87 "Stuka" spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Kaluga replaced by killed : Machine gun spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Kaluga[*]killed : Wehrmacht spawned : StuG IIIC dest : Bryansk replaced by killed : T-26 spawned : StuG IIIC dest : Bryansk [*]killed : PzKw IV Panzer spawned : PzKw IV Panzer dest : Kursk[*]killed : Wehrmacht spawned : PzKw IV Panzer dest : near Kursk replaced by killed : PzKw III Panzer spawned : PzKw IV Panzer dest : near Kursk[*]killed : Wehrmacht spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Kursk replaced by killed : StuG IIIC spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Kursk[*]killed : Ju-87 "Stuka" spawned : Ju-87 "Stuka" dest : Perekop[*]killed : Wehrmacht spawned : Wehrmacht SG dest : Perekop[*]killed : Red Army spawned : Wehrmacht dest : Perekop replaced by killed : Romanian Infantry spawned : Wehrmacht dest : Perekop[/list=1]


Obviously this is only a suggestion and needs to be tested. In this case, we will certainly avoid the "too many units" problem.

PS : We could also improve the "move to" as I did in the version that you tested, but it is not "too many units" problem...

[AGRICOLA]

THE KEY QUESTION

This post is prompted by an interesting and enlightening revisit to Democracy Game: Red Front.

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=185

I can recall that when it was being played, I lurked with the greatest interest as not only was the play excellent but there were interesting sidelines such as newspapers written in a properly bombastic Stalinesque style and much else that added color to the game. The play showed that, without any cheats or breaking of rules, RF 1.4 can be won in mid-1943.

What I found somewhat dismaying was how little progress the Germans made during the summer 1941 when opposed by a group very good players. The Soviets still held both Smolensk (!!!!) and all of the Crimea, German spearheads were only close to Leningrad and the German units nearest to Moscow were a long way north at Kholm. Subsequently, 1942 was a disaster for the Germans as they were pushed back everywhere. There was a minor nuisance crossing of the Don by the Germans but otherwise no sign of significant German action during the summer of '42.

This brings us to the key question of how much should RF TOT add events to those in RF 1.4 in the interest of historical accuracy?

A. In addition to the respawning of units as in RF 1.4, should German forces be locally strengthened so they:
- besiege Leningrad
- reach Moscow
- capture Perekop in '41
- capture Sevastopol and Crimea in '42

B. If there are additional events, is it proper to load them up with 105mm Hummels, the only fast units which can actually at least heavily damage a KV1 behind A/T defenses, or 15cm Feldhaubitzes, which are slower but more powerful? By December '41, there are KV1's defending many Soviet cities and more are in production.

The corollary to the above is whether this would make the scen too tough?

Any feedback and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[curtsibling]

A simple solution is to make the Germans in 1941-1942 have
much higher stats, to represent high early morale and impetus.

This could be achieved by adding a '1' to all H/F points.

[techumseh]

The problem with this is that different players have different skill levels. I found the original Red Front very hard, others didn't. I think a scenario should be difficult, but if you design it for a high command of Xin Yu's, no one else will play it.

Please resist the temptation to tinker!

[fairline]

I agree, the original senario is plenty hard enough for us mere mortals on a first play - although my latest replay over the past couple of weeks saw me advance into Germany by '44. Not to worry though, you guys tinker away as Curt and myself have finished tarting up the original!

As soon as Curt has cast his eyes over the files (check your in-box mate) I'll post it. Expect a new thread in a day or so....

[curtsibling]

Email received! Response given, matey!

PS
I agree with what Tech points out, I found RF to be quite tough...

I guess an 'high difficulty' version the rules could be edited by the player at his own discretion...

Add +1 to all axis H/D values...

[AGRICOLA]

Thanks for the comments and ideas. The H/D +1 will certainly help.

But what I was really trying to get at is how much historical accuracy do we want so that in 1942 there is
- a siege of Sevastepol (if necessary)
- a major crossing of the Don
- the capture of Rostov (Nemo has a number of events that are triggered by the Germans capturing Rostov in '42)
- an attack on Stalingrad by ground units
- Panzers moving towards Maikop

It would be helpful to know how many of these events actually happened in your games.

P.S. If anyone still has a save of their Dec 1941 RF 1.4 game, could you please attach it to a post on this thread.

[Colwyn]

Originally posted by techumseh
The problem with this is that different players have different skill levels. I found the original Red Front very hard, others didn't. I think a scenario should be difficult, but if you design it for a high command of Xin Yu's, no one else will play it.

Please resist the temptation to tinker!

Re concerns about playtesting, making changes to rf 1.4 etc

Redfront 1.5 unit stats that I changed and which had been tested extensively over a year or more catered for this as it took the sting out of the red armys ability to attack/defend so easily against the germans historically but at the same time added the amount of damage it took to destroy them ie KV for eg I lowered its strength but increased its HP.

Also rf 1.5 make all units useful and actually needed to win in the game.

just adding +1 is a untested event that in leui of events and additional changes we plan might be premature.

Since ag's posted/beta tested mods to RF were based on rf 1.5 wouldn't it be easier to start moding RF1.5 to achieve what were looking for rather than picking at Rf 1.4.

In some ways I think posting a completed vanilla version of RF 1.4 for tot would be a start and simple thing to do to complete this thread and then we can have a few idea's and beta tests of various 1.5 versions!

I really should whip up my unit/events files for a tot 1.5 and see what people think, i ve sorta been waiting for the gfx to be done and just d/l it lol

[Colwyn]

Can anyone confirm wheather adv Terrain's in TOT have the defence modifier working b/c in Civ 2's it didn't!

ie

Refinery, 1,4, 1,1,50,
Kollektiv, 1,4, 4,1,3,
Grassland, 1,2, 2,1,0,
Paper Mill, 1,3, 1,4,6,
Bones, 8,1, 0,0,0,
Iron Ore, 6,4, 0,10,3,
Water, 1,2, 1,0,0,

[Boco]

AFAIK, specials in ToT still use the parent terrain modifier, regardless of what you write for the special. Only did limited testing long ago, though. Is this what you're after?

[MacGalleo]

As a first step, we must settle the problems "too many units" and "partisans spawned in winter 41/42".

For the rest, I think we should
- clearly define what is to be done
or
- that everyone makes his own mod, as suggested by Curt.

Maybe I am wrong, but for the moment I see opinions that diverge ...