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Non-graphics mods for TOT Red Front Redux

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  • Non-graphics mods for TOT Red Front Redux

    This thread is for discussing any non-graphics mods that need to be made to Captain Nemo’s Red Front 1.4 scenario to create a TOT Red Front Redux.

    I have been preparing a laundry list of possible changes to RF 1.4 and the reasons for both making and not making them. However, before I post the list, I need guidance from the community on a more fundamental question. How difficult should the Redux scenario be?

    Even with the closing of loopholes, tightening of house rules and possibly tweaking some events, it is my feeling that RF 1.4 will remain a moderately difficult scenario that can be finished well within the time limit.

    I’m basing much of this on the Red Front Democracy game (RF 1.4) at Apolyton. As far as I can tell, the game was played very much as Captain Nemo intended it to be played, without using any loopholes and with more restrictive house rules than specified by the author.

    Although the game was not completed, it did show that the scen is winnable in late ’43 or early ’44.

    If a higher degree of difficulty is desired, then we should investigate the possibility of using Colwyn’s RF 1.5 modification of RF 1.4. This is a much more difficult scenario and the author is quite right in saying that it is a genuine challenge for players to complete it within the time frame.

    For those not familiar with RF 1.5, in my estimation, Colwyn has done a superb job in closing loopholes, tightening house rules and introducing a host of good ideas and refinements. The most significant change is that he has replaced the freights from UK with shipments of military units. This has greatly reduced the money available for rush buying and made it mandatory that a player develop the productivity of Soviet cities, much like what actually happened. IMO, RF 1.5 is an excellent mod of RF 1.4 but seems to have drawn less attention from players than it deserves.

    A few tweaks would be required to close a loophole or two.


    Advice and opinions please.
    Last edited by AGRICOLA; December 3, 2004, 08:44.
    Excerpts from the Manual of the Civilization Fanatic :

    Money can buy happiness, just raise the luxury rate to 50%.
    Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of great empires.

  • #2
    Are you familiar with the extended events properties of ToT?

    If not - Check out the SL tips pages!

    Some groovy stuff can be done, that might fire up some ideas to streamline the events for 1.4/1.5!

    http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=Home
    http://totalfear.blogspot.com/

    Comment


    • #3
      Yes, I'm somewhat familiar with TOT's greater possibilities from having played Market Garden and then studied some of its inner workings.

      I have considered how TOT's enhanced events might be useful for at least one of the possible tweaks for the Redux. . . . making the battle of Stalingrad unavoidable for players.

      But right now I need some feedback on which way to proceed. Should a thread similar to this one be posted on another forum at Poly? At CFC? Any other ideas? This is a community effort, not a vehicle for my own ideas.
      Excerpts from the Manual of the Civilization Fanatic :

      Money can buy happiness, just raise the luxury rate to 50%.
      Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of great empires.

      Comment


      • #4
        Well, now we have Nemo's approval for modification it would be a shame not to use some of ToT's advanced features and extra unit slots. Taking the replacement of freight with military units as an example, we could have a Valentine tank slot as a representative UK aid unit.

        What are people's views on using Colwyn's mod as the basis for this conversion? As Agricola has described it to me, Colwyn successfully eradicated the potential 'too many units' bug by removing a number of German rear-echelon troops and changing events to spawn 1 partisan rather than 2 when Soviet units are killed.
        http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.ph...ory:Civ2_Units

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by fairline
          Well, now we have Nemo's approval for modification it would be a shame not to use some of ToT's advanced features and extra unit slots. Taking the replacement of freight with military units as an example, we could have a Valentine tank slot as a representative UK aid unit.

          What are people's views on using Colwyn's mod as the basis for this conversion? As Agricola has described it to me, Colwyn successfully eradicated the potential 'too many units' bug by removing a number of German rear-echelon troops and changing events to spawn 1 partisan rather than 2 when Soviet units are killed.
          Well, now we need to ask Colwyn. I think it would be a good idea, seeing as he has done a most of the bug fixing. Also, he has said that the game is now significantly harder which will be a good change. I'm for it. Of course, we're all going to have to get his final version so a link would be nice.

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm going to have to eat a large slice of humble pie as far as Colwyn is concerned. I seem to recall some rather pompous posts by your's truly in Colwyn's RF thread expressing my indignation. Oops!
            http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.ph...ory:Civ2_Units

            Comment


            • #7
              I'm going to post both on Poly and CFC to see if I can find players who have actually played RF 1.5 and hopefully get some feedback.

              I would add a clarification to

              Originally posted by fairline
              As Agricola has described it to me, Colwyn successfully eradicated the potential 'too many units' bug by removing a number of German rear-echelon troops and changing events to spawn 1 partisan rather than 2 when Soviet units are killed.
              Colwyn made the event that spawned partisans when a Red Army was killed a "JUST ONCE" and added an TURN based event that would spawn a partisan. These generate just enogh partisans to be a nuisance to the Germans.
              Excerpts from the Manual of the Civilization Fanatic :

              Money can buy happiness, just raise the luxury rate to 50%.
              Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of great empires.

              Comment


              • #8
                Thanks to Nemo's generous offer, to Colywn's hard work, and to all the talent here, I think every effort should be made to "tweak" Red Front to be the best it can be in terms of playability, graphics, events, units, etc, etc. . .

                It will always remain Nemo's Red Front, and it will continue to be one of the greatest Civ2 scenarios ever created.

                I think no effort should be spared in this effort to remake Red Front. . .

                Cheers!

                Comment


                • #9
                  I've posted on what I hope are the best forums for contacting Civ2 players both here and at CFC, asking for "Feedback from RED FRONT veterans". I really think that we need other players' opinions on the difficulty of RF 1.4 and, especially, 1.5.

                  @Leonidas
                  Didn't you try RF 1.5? I recall seeing your posts on Colwyn's thread.
                  Excerpts from the Manual of the Civilization Fanatic :

                  Money can buy happiness, just raise the luxury rate to 50%.
                  Money is not the root of all evil, it is the root of great empires.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by AGRICOLA
                    I've posted on what I hope are the best forums for contacting Civ2 players both here and at CFC, asking for "Feedback from RED FRONT veterans". I really think that we need other players' opinions on the difficulty of RF 1.4 and, especially, 1.5.

                    @Leonidas
                    Didn't you try RF 1.5? I recall seeing your posts on Colwyn's thread.
                    Yes I did try v1.5

                    If I recall that v1.5 at that time was in beta, and as play continued, problems would be pointed out to Colwyn, which he in turn attempted to fix.

                    As more bugs started to pop up, I decided to wait before continuing play of the scenario until they were fixed. I think it took Colwyn some time to iron out all the issues, and by that time I had stopped playing the scenario.

                    As I recall, Colwyn had put stackable terrian into the scenario to avoid the "all units in one stack being killed" problem, as well as many other fixes.

                    My suggestion would be start with v1.5 as the basis for any game tweaks for Red Front. A lot of work went into this version.

                    Many players who played v1.5 found it to be much harder to win than v1.4.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Hiho
                      Fairline gave me a link to this discussion.


                      Cpt Nemo did an excellent job with the phases of the war when the soviet Player begins in an defending position and afterwards starts to counter-attack!

                      However, in most games I've played the later phases of the war (when your troops reach Axis territories) are very monotonous:
                      The german AI seems to stop any efforts to win the war and begins to builds lots of 88mm guns and fortifies them in its cities. So you don't have to fear any dangerous counter-attacks and the only thing you have to do now is to build lots of veteran Katyushas to destroy them.
                      This might be historical accurate in some way but the scenario gets somewhat boring.


                      Maybe you can make this part of the scenario a lot more interesting or at least more variedly with some new minor events. Some ideas as examples:

                      - lots of fortified german Wehrmacht -strong in defense but weak in attack- in those cities Hitler declared as fortresses (like the 'Fortress Köngisberg') - the soviet player has to decide now if he goes around or if he wants to take this cities at any price

                      - invisible Volkssturm which appear after german cities are taken; no serious danger but really annoying

                      - extraordinary strong Waffen-SS -high movement or invisble flag- which appear very late in the game and which try to defend their country till the bitter end

                      - the chance of counter-attacks for the Germans if your troop stop their advance or are not able to take major cities in a certain timeframe (in this case the Germans would have had enough time to organize and re-group their defense...) [I hope this sentence makes any sense as I always had serious problems with english grammar )



                      [btw] I haven't play RF 1.5 so far as I thought it would be still in beta status.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        I would also suggest strengthening the German Kursk offensive portion of the game as well.

                        If I remember from v1.4 the event that causes the Kursk offensive has far too few German tanks and the attacks weren't as powerful as I had hoped they would be.

                        Cheers!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Imagine if you could determine the results of unseen Westen attacks like D-Day via flagged events...

                          The triumphant Germans may remount some kind of attack and make things tough...

                          Just an idea...
                          http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=Home
                          http://totalfear.blogspot.com/

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by curtsibling
                            Imagine if you could determine the results of unseen Westen attacks like D-Day via flagged events...

                            The triumphant Germans may remount some kind of attack and make things tough...

                            Just an idea...
                            This could probably be accomplished as random events in the 1944 events file. There would have to be two such events included in the game that would give a tech to the player such as "German D-Day Win" or "German D-Day Lose".

                            As soon as the Germans get "D-Day Win" they'd be able to research another tech called "Redeployment", with a "just once" command, that would generate the extra German units for the attack through a series of events.

                            D-Day Lose would make D-Day Win obsolete. So if the Germans got D-Day Lose before D-Day Win or before Redeployment could be researched there would be no extra German units created as the D-Day Lose would cancel out D-Day Win.

                            The only way the Russian player would even know about the events would be when Redeployment was finished and a text message pops up. Also, I would recommend giving Redeployment a very high value to the AI so that it gets researched ASAP, making the event likely to happen, but not so likely given the randomness that D-Day Lose is triggered.

                            How's that sound?

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Sounds like a very good plan!

                              I am giving these alternate scenario files some serious thought for my own efforts!
                              http://sleague.apolyton.net/index.php?title=Home
                              http://totalfear.blogspot.com/

                              Comment

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