The Desert War - Preview and development thread

[Case]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
@Motorsycle-Recon:
According to the OOB I've been reading the Germans had many companies and battalions of motorsycles for recon.

Were these the divisions OOBs in North Africa or their generic organistion?

You think I should seperate between Aussies and N. Zealandies?

Yes! - the Kiwi troops were used quite differently to the Australians and developed their own unique organisation (after the 4th(?) NZ brigade was destroyed it was reformed as an armoured brigade, giving the NZ division a unique structure of two infantry brigades and an armoured brigade.

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by Case
Were these the divisions OOBs in North Africa or their generic organistion?

N. Africa:

15. Panzer-Division

Originally posted by Case Yes! - the Kiwi troops were used quite differently to the Australians and developed their own unique organisation (after the 4th(?) NZ brigade was destroyed it was reformed as an armoured brigade, giving the NZ division a unique structure of two infantry brigades and an armoured brigade.

Ok, good to know. But when did these Kiwis enter the theatre? When to put them into action via events?

[fairline]

Ok, my scan of your list may have missed these, but anyway:

1st Armd Div: 2nd Amd Bde Gp - 3 regts (ie bn strength)
- 1 mot inf bn
- 1 RHA Regt (25-pdr)
- 2 LAAR (Bofors 40mm)
200th Guards Motor Bge Gp - 3 inf bn
- 1 RHA Regt
Divisional troops - 1 Armd Car Regt (Bn)

8th Armd Div: 23rd Armd Bde - 3 regts
24th Armd Bde - 3 regts
8th Support Gp - 2 RHA/RA Regts
- 1 ATR
- 1 LAAR
- 1 mot inf bn
Divisional troops - 1 Armd Car Regt (Bn)


10th Armd Div: 8th Armd Bde - 3 regts
- 1 mot inf bn
24th Amd Bde - 3 regts (ex-8th Armd)
- 1 mot inf bn
133 Inf Bde (ex-44 Div) - 3 inf bn
Divisional arty: 3 regts RHA/RA
1 ATR (6-pdr)
1 LAAR
Divisional troops - 1 Armd Car Regt (Bn)

1st and 32nd Army Tank Bdes (each 3 x Matilda or Valentine)

Note that British armoured, artillery and armoured recce regiments were equivalent to US/German battalions

Also, 8th Armoured division never fought as a single entity - it was broken up and it's constituent brigades fought independantly - 24th fought under command of 10th Armd Div at Alamein and 23rd was equiped with Valentines and fought as an Army Tank Brigade.

7th Armoured Div - It started out with 4th and 7th armoured brigades, was reinforced with 22nd - 7th ended up in the Far East and 4th fought independantly. It also had 1 armoured brigade ex-2nd Armoured division under command at one time IIRC.

[Boco]

Did the Brits ever fight a war without constantly juggling brigades?

[fairline]

Nope

They still do it now; the battalion has always been the largest consistently cohesive formation. Brigades chop and change battalions and Divisions chop and change brigades. The Division with fixed regiments and regiments with fixed battalions is a new-fangled US invention

[fairline]

I can't remember which site I found this Allied air force OOB - suffice to say it's not my work but somebody else's. It lists Allied squadrons at the time of El Alamein.

[Eivind IV]

Originally posted by fairline
Ok, my scan of your list may have missed these, but anyway:

Thanks! But when did these units appear? I can't seem to find them...

Originally posted by Boco
Did the Brits ever fight a war without constantly juggling brigades?

Yeah, having gone in debt to the campaign oob's the last couple of weeks it's quite a mess actually

Also, here's the latest units file. Most of the gaps are now filled. Only 1 remainding unit to go. I figured it would be another tank upgrade for the 7th armoured div. Di the 7th armoured div ever ahve any shermans or priests within their ranks?

Also, Gareth, you wouldn't by any chance have a 2-pdr laying around? Possibly a CV.35 and an Italian para?

Have a nice weekend everyone! Enjoy!

[fairline]

Originally posted by Eivind IV
Thanks! But when did these units appear? I can't seem to find them...

1st Armoured Div arrived in the Middle East in 41 but first saw action there in the Gazala battles in 42. 8th Armoured arrived mid/late 42, was broken up and it's brigades first saw action at Alamein. 10th Armd Div was first engaged at Alem el Halfa and fought at Alamein.

... Di the 7th armoured div ever ahve any shermans or priests within their ranks?

Yes, but not 'til after Alamein . To give you some idea, here are the numbers of the different varieties of tanks in use at Alamein for each of the armoured brigades:

2nd AB - 68 Crusader III, 92 Sherman II
4th LtAB - 14 Grant, 57 Stuarts
8th AB - 45 Crusader III, 57 Grants, 31 Sherman II
9th AB - 46 Crusader III, 37 Grants, 35 Sherman II
22nd AB - 46 Crusader III, 57 Grants, 19 Stuarts
23rd AB - 186 Valentines
24th AB - 45 Crusader III, 93 Sherman II

Also, Gareth, you wouldn't by any chance have a 2-pdr laying around? Possibly a CV.35 and an Italian para?

Gonna be busy for a month or so, but I'd be glad to help then.

[Bostero]

Only 1 unit remaining to go

what about mine fields?

[Broken_Erika]

edit, minefields would be good,
edit yet again,
this link may prove useful, it is a detailed timeline of the war in the desert,

http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war-in-the-desert/war-in-the-desert-index.htm

[Eivind IV]

Minefields is a good idea.

I have a problem I hope someone with good knowledge of events could help me with. I'm experimenting with MOVEUNIT events, with very little success. Am I doing anything wrong here, because this doesn't yield any results what-so-ever. Completely dead. I read somewhere that especially for long distances the game get confused, but not even for relatively short distances it's working. I was hoping this could work, as it would make the game more interesting against the AI. Without this event working I can nothing but only reccomend the game for multiplayer.

@IF
SCENARIOLOADED
@THEN
MOVEUNIT
unit=AnyUnit
owner=Eighth Army
maprect
187,49,187,49,187,49,187,49
moveto
160,36
numbertomove=ALL
@ENDIF

[techumseh]

Nemo wrote a tip on the moveunit command, which is on the Cradle site, here: http://coc.apolyton.net/guides/index.shtml

The structure of your event is fine. I suspect that it's the scenarioloaded trigger that's not connecting with the units. Try a turn based trigger or a receivedtechnology one if you want it to continue each turn. I used this in Red October:

@IF
ReceivedTechnology
receiver=Poles
technology=33
@THEN
MOVEUNIT
unit=AnyUnit
owner=Poles
maprect
9,29,13,29,13,37,9,37
moveto
19,39
numbertomove=ALL
@ENDIF

ToT has a taketechnology event, so I could also turn this off. You couldn't do that in MGE.

[Eivind IV]

I tried with a turn based trigger. Nuthin'! But as this scenario won't have actual research, I might use the tech tree to move around units (First and foremost those that will come by events, but the starting ones as well if doable).

I'll try it out! Cheers!

[Eivind IV]

Right now I'm on the verge of giving up. The AI is so insanely stupid it makes all my efforts useless. Even with the goto commands it will not obey. And for it to even function on a basic level I would have to use all my event space on goto commands. What a fvcking shame nothing can be done to the AI for civ2...makes me wonder why the hell I even bother making scenarios for such a faulty game...certainly not a morale booster for future projects

As it is now the scenario would only work as a human vs human scenario

[techumseh]

I'm sorry to hear that. Which side is supposed to be played?

Here's the most efficient move unit events combo I've found. I used it in Operation Market-Garden and it worked well.

@IF
TURN
turn=Every
@THEN
MOVEUNIT
unit=AnyUnit
owner=Germans
maprect
0,66,38,66,38,86,0,66
moveto
13,79
numbertomove=all
@ENDIF

@IF
UNITKILLED
Unit=AnyUnit
Attacker=Anybody
Defender=Anybody
@THEN
MOVEUNIT
unit=AnyUnit
owner=Germans
maprect
0,66,38,66,38,86,0,66
moveto
13,79
numbertomove=all
@ENDIF

Basically, every German unit gets a move order every turn and a reminder anytime any unit from any civ gets killed. All it takes is 2 events. As Nemo said in his tip, the secret is to keep the units moving by giving them repeated commands.

If you'd like someone to have a fresh look at your work and provide some suggestions, I'd be pleased to do it.