The Korean War Development Thread

[fairline]

Some thoughts you may like to consider before bothering with new units or flashy gfx (rich coming from me I know!):

- The scenario is way too easy. The N. Koreans can be beaten back from turn 2;

- armour is far too powerful and has too many movement points. I found myself using infantry merely as garrison units and was able to attack 2 consequetive N. Korean cities with the same tank units. Likewise arty. The Korean War was all about infantry;

- The naval units are a severe nuisance. Get rid of all of them bar the a/c carriers;

- The UN has far too many troops. Reduce the unit scale to Regt / Bde;

-Beef up the initial N Korean invasion through event generated units and gridded move to commands

- Phase the introduction of UN units to replicate the actual historical deplayment. Lose all those US units (including F86s!) in Japan at the outset.

- Take a look at the positioning of some of the impassible terrain around the border.

[Patine]

Some good points, there, Fairline. I did notice, now that you mention it, even the AI relied heavily on armor and artillery. I think I may fiddle with comparable fp and hp of infantry, armor, and artillery to balance things a bit better. And, I could remove everything but the occupational forces from Japan, and the naval units (save carriers). That'd free up a few slots. And a regt/bde level would be more manageable, too. I'll also beef up the Commies even more. Thanks for the advice! I'll get to work tomorrow.

[Patine]

Okay. I was going to take a break from this (see http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=157614 , last post), but I think I can just maybe finish it before Christmas (at the very latest). I've put placeholders in the 155mm Long Tom and Soviet 76mm and 122mm artillery slots from Nemo's 'Red Front' and '2194 Days of War,' but couldn't find an 82mm Soviet mortar or a T-6 Texan anywhere. Chris has agreed to do a SK Air Force roundell for the last one. That cool unit that makes a better Commie Border Barrier HT let me use improves things, too. I'm currently reworking the events.txt file, though I would like to see tech's suggestions (my e-mail's being checked daily, techumseh), so I just might be able to get another beta-testing by mid-November.

[Patine]

Okay, here's an update. I've tweaked the events files and unit stats a bit more, and the Commies get more and more successful each time I test it, but not yet to my needs (I think more initial units will be needed yet). I've tweaked hp and fp of units to emphasize infantry over armor, but still make armor useful, just not overwhelming (I may give US and Royal Marines, Offensive NK Infantry, and CC and RA Volunteers the 'ignore city walls' flag, so they can better capture cities. I did this with Hohei Butai {offensive Japanese infantry} to some success in EotRS). I've updated US graphics with the new Fairline US units collection. I've also asked Curt to make an SK T-6 Texan, and he's agreed. All I need now are Soviet 76mm and 122mm Artillery and 82mm Mortars, if anyone has any laying around.

[techumseh]

Here, as promised, is the events file that I've been working on. It's far from finished, but it should give you an idea of what can be done.

This is my list of event changes that I've made or planned:

-most UN units except some elite infantry are now NOT veterans (done)

-fix partisan event (over 3 turns)

-spawn NK units in captured UN cities during initial advance (done)

-NK moveunit commands (done)

-trigger CC intervention if selected NK cities are captured (flags & mask) (done)

-spawn CC units in captured UN cities during second advance

-CC moveunit commands

-add NK and CC reinforcements (frequent and large)


On the scn file itself, I've removed the Soviet MiGs from NK, and made the USSR neutral instead of at war with the UN. I added flags on ocean tiles to lock up the Chinese and Soviet ports until the intervention of their respective countries.


Otherwise, I'd suggest that if you want to include a nuclear option, you use the B-36 for that and free up one of the B-29 slots for another unit.

[Patine]

Thanks, greatly Tech! I will have a look at this! I'll get back to you soon.

[Patine]

Say, Tech, I'm having trouble with this flag event thing. I used the captured NK cities to trigger flags, then had it check for a minimum of 5 captured cities, as you had. Here's where I changed it, though (maybe I shouldn't have). I set so when it checks the flags and finds at least 5, it will have a poppup text, create the initial CC forces at the border, kill the Chinese Border civ, grant the tech allowing the CC to build their volunteers, and make aggression between the CC and UN, all just once. Then, combining it with random turn, I trigger more Chinese units at the border, but not just once. These effects stack with the trigger if the UN crosses the CC border before triggering this event. However, even after capturing EVERY NK city in a test, this event will not trigger. What could be wrong. I've attached my current events.txt so you can better help me.

[techumseh]

Sorry, Patine. I didn't test that event before I sent it. Your events file doesn't have @INITFLAG at the start. It needs to be there in order for flags to work. It goes up at the top of the file right after @BEGINEVENTS and @DEBUG.

Also, the SU-76 was self-propelled artillery, so it makes sense to give it the "ignore city walls" flag. This gives the initial NK offensive more punch. They also take fewer casualties, making the UN counter-offensive more challenging.

[Patine]

Thanks, Tech. Will try that now.

[Patine]

It worked! This scen should be in its next beta shortly (knock on wood).

[Patine]

Could I possibly bug someone for an icons.bmp and accompanying bigger improvements.bmp graphic to represent an air force upgrading from propellor to jet aircraft (to replace Leonardo's)? I'd be most appreciative! This scen's almost ready for it's next beta.

[Patine]

For some reason I got a 'heap get failure' message at just short of 80 kb on my events.txt. Is there anything I can do to get the full 100 kb limit and thus use my current events.txt, or will I have to prune it?

[techumseh]

Are you using a lot of delay events? Catfish has found this adds unaccounted increases in memory use. Check his site for the tip.

[curtsibling]

Surely the most pesky of CIV2 problems! (apart from 'too many units!')

All you can do is combine events and shave away surplus text and cloned events.

I was wrestling with this problem just yesterday. I was using
@Debug...And found that the event file must be under 70kb.

It is a pain in the butt. I was forced to remove a slew of cool Eastern front invasions.

You just have to remove text/events/delays till you get the events to run.

Make sure you remember to remove the Debug suffix when you are done testing too!

[Catfish]

Originally posted by Patine
For some reason I got a 'heap get failure' message at just short of 80 kb on my events.txt. Is there anything I can do to get the full 100 kb limit and thus use my current events.txt, or will I have to prune it?

The 104 kB limit is for game memory, not the file size on your disk. Yes, you've exceeded the allowable events space. Keep culling/rationalising until the 'heap get failure' error message disappears. Each event takes up 284 bytes + strings in memory. Some events that use the @AND modifier count as double.

Originally posted by techumseh
Are you using a lot of delay events? Catfish has found this adds unaccounted increases in memory use. Check his site for the tip.

That issue won't cause an events error, though. The excess is simply ignored; the delayed events won't occur. ToT scenario designers should be mindful of this and leave enough space free: determine the maximum number of concurrent Delay and DelayPerFlag events and multiply this value by 284. That's how large you need to keep the remaining heap space.