Problems simulating World War II

[Elok]

I could be wrong, but didn't somebody (I thought it was Kobayashi himself) discover that the AI will use carriers properly provided their build cost is sufficiently low? That is, if their cost is around sixty or so, the AI will gladly use them to carry. Otherwise, it considers them too valuable to "waste" on transporting air units. The low cost could be compensated for by:

*Making them unbuildable and generating them by events or giving a limited number at the start
*Making air units proportionately more expensive
*Tweaking their stats to make them helpless without planes to use (e.g., FP of one while other naval units have around three; the AI appears to only consider ADM) and possibly giving them the AEGIS flag and weak defense to make them specialize in air defense
*Using CivCity to limit the number of cities that can build naval units to create a practical limit on the number of buildable carriers

I know nothing of ToT or its limits though. Going out on a limb (as I also know nothing of WWII), could you simulate tactical and strategic bombers by dividing their ranges and other stats to specialize?

So a tactical bomber has a range of one like a fighter but can't attack air, allowing it to "suppress" wide areas or multiple units in one turn. Its stats would be oriented more towards high offense and low FP. The strategic bomber acts like a normal civ2 bomber only it has longer range and superior offensive power to help it survive attacks on fortified cities. Most of its power is in FP to simulate a few powerful bombing strikes. The AI probably won't use it correctly, but this way you get to have different strategic bombers for different powers as opposed to a single generic bomber in the spy slot (plus all the limitations which were just mentioned). I guess you might be able to do something with roles (tactical bombers have a role of "3," maybe, to keep them away from cities?).

[Mercator]

Originally posted by techumseh
@Merc: Did you use any particular formula with Orbis? Alternatively, can we use it to find the formula?

Well, to be honest, I just made it based on common knowledge at the time. Mostly "Controlling unit obsolescence" in Leon Marrick's Advanced Scenario Design guide. That only talks about making sure the AI can build your unit though. It doesn't say anything about getting the AI to use its units properly, which, it seems, has to do with role and cost.

[Eivind IV]

@Mercator, or anyone else familiar with hex utility programming:
I'm not sure this is the right forum for this, but is it possible to somehow, like you do in civcity, check a flag for a city whether to make it able to build ships or not, do the same with land units? Or even better, limit the city to only produce the units you chose it to?

[Boco]

Only on a map-specific basis in ToT.

[Exile]

There are several problems that have prevented me from throwing together a WWII scen. These are;

1.) What do you do with Sweeden? Turkey? Spain?

2.) Should a separate civ be allocated for pro-axis neutrals like hungary, rumania, bulgaria, and finland?

3.) Should Italy be a pro-axis neutral or a civ?

4.) Ideally, there should be an unused civ so that when France is overrun, and Paris is captured, a Vichy state is established and Free French units also come into existence. But setting aside an entire civ is difficult to contemplate.

5.) Naval units will go after fortified ports, thus committing suicide. Unrealistic.

6.) The carrier problem, although only GB used them in this theatre.

7.) The forementioned problem of strategic bombing. My own tentative solution was to place factory units in german cities. Eliminating them would trigger an event that took away money from the Germans. The problem with this has already been covered.

Yet, it's the neutral dilemma that's most daunting. There simply aren't enough civs available to do it right.

[Case]

An important consideration with WW2 in Europe scenarios is when to set the start date. It's a lot easier to make a scenario that starts on 1 September 1939 than 31 August 1939 and simpler still if you pick 22 June 1941 as your start date. As the war dragged on there were, perhaps unfortunately (depending on your view on the effects of pre-war nationalism), fewer and fewer countries.

After the surrender of Italy in mid 1943 there were really only three countries in Europe that mattered - the United States and the British (the level of co-operation between these countries simply can't be overstated), Soviets and Germans. A 'Crusade in Europe' scenario about the liberation of Europe from Nazi hands would be relatively simple to design, if not to constuct.

Originally posted by Exile
1.) What do you do with Sweeden? Turkey? Spain?

Don't bother with them. Leave their chunks of land empty, perhaps with powerful barb units acting as borders.

Historicially, all these countries contributed to the war was a sighting of the Bismark and a railway line (Sweden), a single infantry division (Spain) and a headache for both Axis and Allies (Turkey - never was so much achieved by a national government though doing so little. There has to be a lesson for us beaurocrats there somewhere ). As the only time they were going to enter the war was when one side collapsed (and even then only the Turks joined in - presumably to confuse and anoy everybody) they may as well be omitted.

2.) Should a separate civ be allocated for pro-axis neutrals like hungary, rumania, bulgaria, and finland?

No - these countries militaries and economies were, for all intents and purposes, under German control.

3.) Should Italy be a pro-axis neutral or a civ?

A seperate civ, perhaps.

6.) The carrier problem, although only GB used them in this theatre.

You may as well omit them as, as far as Civ models things, thier contribution was minor (the USN's fleet carriers made a few re-supply runs to Malta in early 1942 and I think that USN escort carriers supported the Dragoon landings in the South of France BTW).

7.) The forementioned problem of strategic bombing. My own tentative solution was to place factory units in german cities. Eliminating them would trigger an event that took away money from the Germans. The problem with this has already been covered.

Yeah, it's a bit of a show stopper. Flying spies would be handy.

[Dr Kellogg]

Mh interesting thread.

Originally posted by Exile
4.) Ideally, there should be an unused civ so that when France is overrun, and Paris is captured, a Vichy state is established and Free French units also come into existence. But setting aside an entire civ is difficult to contemplate.

In the Microprose WWII scen France tries to negotiate with the Germans once their capital is taken.
Has anyone tried to copy the 'special WWII-only AI' with the enhanced ToT macro language?
I think about using the ModifyReputation and Negotiator actions. An ai controlled French civ will be likely to make peace; a human player has the choice whether to stand the fight or to resign and Free French troops under Allied command will continue the fight.

If an Allied unit is killed by the French or vice versa, inactive series of events will be activated via the ToT flags. From now on the Allies may receive Free French and Résistance units by events. In case of negotiations between civs are prevented, French and Allies should be at peace instead of being allied.

[Eivind IV]

Most of your problems, Exile, can be solved by starting well into the war. For a European ww2 scen, if you start after Barbarossa, you've solved most of your sweats with the pro axis and Italy, as you would have all in one civ. For a world war it would be best to start after Pearl Harbor. In my Blitzkrieg 1942 I have this civ line up:

1. Soviet Union
2. Japanese - as I start in 1942, all the problems of the early Japanese expansion is solved by them having them from start of.
3. Axis - including Italy, Finland and the rest of the Axis, and the occupied territory.
4. Commonwealth - Britain, Canada, Australia, India, Africa etc.
5. Americans - I've let the Americans control China, so that it will not be a walk in the park for the Japanese. They also control Brazil, Mexico, West Indies and all the other S. American Allies.fra
6. Vichy-French - Southern France and North Africa.
7. Neutrals - This civ I only included as I had no idea what to use it for. It is invadable in theory, but negotiations are turned off. I guess I could instead used them as Barbarians and by hex editing align them to everyone to avoid this. This would open for a seperate Chinese civ or whatever you would want. But with these merged alignments I had all the civs worked out, so I was faced with the unusual problem of what using the last civ for. But they can't build any offensive units, so they're just watching the war from the bench anyway.

If this was a european ww2 scenario, you could remove the Japanese and the Americans from the list, having 2 open civs. But in my opinion 1942 is the best and most balanced year to start a ww2 scenario for civ2.

In the same scenario, strategic bombing is represented when allied bombers occupy industrial terrain, effectively starving the cities. I also haveescort fighters, so it's perfectly safe to do this. It has btw, come to my attention Skyer has solved the pillage thing for aircrafts.

Btw, for Battleships, would the suicide thing change any if you change the role of it to transport?

[Dr Kellogg]

Originally posted by Exile
7.) The forementioned problem of strategic bombing. My own tentative solution was to place factory units in german cities. Eliminating them would trigger an event that took away money from the Germans. The problem with this has already been covered.

Yet, it's the neutral dilemma that's most daunting. There simply aren't enough civs available to do it right.

Long time ago I have begun to work on a WWII scenario from a British/Allied side of view with the British/Allied civ to be human controlled.
I have come to a solution to keep the importance of bombing facilities using ToT flags.
The Germans receive additional units which are created regularly via events (TurnInterval). Once their dedicated factory is destroyed, these supplies are stopped.
For example, the British can reduce Germany's V2 output enormously by destroying the Peenemünde research complex.
Yet, this means a waste of precious unit slots.

[curtsibling]

Good idea, though!

I can imagine if a scenario were made to represent the Allied strategic
bombing campaigns of 1943-45, that idea would be a winner.

[Palaiologos]

Microprose's original WW2 scenario is superbly balanced(perhaps too much ) and uses seperate civs for Turkey and Spain.

The civs are Allies, Russians, Axis, French, Turks, Spanish, Neutrals. USA is represented by N.Y and Washington under allied control. Barbarians only represent Switzerland.
Finland(just Helsinki really) and Italy are members of the axis.

I think that with an upgrade in gfx and some gameplay tweaks Microprose's WW2 might be the ideal WW2 european scenario.

Hell, i might as well do that myself.

[curtsibling]

It is something I always felt like doing too...

The temptation to add/change stuff was quite strong though!

[Broken_Erika]

i've played around with it a bit, plus the number of cities is nowhere near the limit so adding new ones is easy, i like to play as turkey and try to rebuild the ottomon empire
i usually last about 15 tuns before i am dead.
i think i'll try playing the neutrals,

[Tigey]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Microprose's original WW2 scenario is superbly balanced(perhaps too much ) and uses seperate civs for Turkey and Spain.

The civs are Allies, Russians, Axis, French, Turks, Spanish, Neutrals. USA is represented by N.Y and Washington under allied control. Barbarians only represent Switzerland.
Finland(just Helsinki really) and Italy are members of the axis.

I think that with an upgrade in gfx and some gameplay tweaks Microprose's WW2 might be the ideal WW2 european scenario.

Hell, i might as well do that myself.

Didn't Harlan Thompson do something similar, with "World War II: The European Theatre"? It seemed to be based upon a heavily built up version of the microprose WW2 scenario. It had some really unique ideas, particularly the idea that if Germany attacked the neutrals, like Switzerland, the US and Sweden, it would suffer crippling financial penalties, etc. It would benefit massively from a graphical update though (as some of the unit graphics look a little dated, but only in comparison to the wonderful units people have come out with in the last few years...

Somebody else did a "Reich 1960" scenario, again built up from the old Microprose one.

[kobayashi]

Originally posted by Elok
I could be wrong, but didn't somebody (I thought it was Kobayashi himself) discover that the AI will use carriers properly provided ....

What kobi did in ZWK was have AI u-boats loaded with torpedoes (cost 1, range 1, sub flag, missiles). An event would generate new torpedoes at a sub base when the subs fired their torpedoes or when a sub sank with its torpedoes. When a new AI sub was built or spawned at the base, it would automatically carry the new torpedoes with it making it a perpetual reloading system. Only limitation is that the AI subs only fire the torps if they end their turn next to an enemy ship.

The original idea came from someone else (cannot remember who) who was talking about using a similar scheme to simulate a spear-throwing hunter.