A Slim Victory

[Boco]

Problem with OMC

I can't get Kunming to show on the map! I've tried +/- spaces after the commas. Any ideas?

[Boco]

I think I'll make the map using zooms of these maps from OMC and Falling Rain, possibly after rotating ~ -30°. Leaning toward stretching the x axis by 1.5.

[Boco]

Have to live up to my well-earned rep for spam.

This may be close to a working model for the map. Any comments before I get started? I'll leave this alone for a few days to give the cartographers a chance to kibbutz.



Current working model:

Jungle, mountain, and river gorges will be impassable terrain.

Himalayas will be actual units to block movement.

Main rivers will be ocean throughout their navigable range, then streams and/or gorges beyond that.

Still working out schemes for para-transports for airmobile ops. Don't want them landing in navigable rivers or the Bay of Bengal.

Map0 = main map
Map1 = air and naval strategic maps
Map2 = supply map
Map3 = OOB map

Will likely resort to dry and monsoon sets of Rules.txt, using Merc's autoload utility.

[Case]

Originally posted by Boco
This may be close to a working model for the map. Any comments before I get started?

That looks pretty good, though you may want to add a bit more sea room on the left/west end of the map to give the Allies a bit more scope to try avoid Japanese air attacks. You could also extend the map south a bit as there isn't going to be much room for the border battles in which the Japanese broke the back of the Allied forces in early 1942.

I'm not sure how important this is for your purposes, but the main British supply route to the critical Imphal region was from Bengal and up the Brahmaputra river (and adjacent rail line). Building up and maintaining this supply route was one of the epic logistical achievements of the war and the current map may act to limit the extent to which this can be included.

Current working model:

Jungle, mountain, and river gorges will be impassable terrain.

Are you going to have classes of mountains and jungle which are passable terrain? The basic dynamics of much of the fighting were that both sides stuck to the roads for logistical purposes but swung into the jungle and mountains to try to outflank the other side (a common tactic was to inflitrate through the jungle and set up a road block behind the other side's lines). Slim wrote that one of the keys to victory was training his forces to be comfortable manoeuvring and operating in the jungle.

[Boco]

Er, um, well...that's what happens when you start on a map before reading enough about the history. Looks like I'll need to put it back to the conventional orientation. Thanks Case.

Yes, there will be passable terrain routes between cities set in jungle highlands. That training Slim mentions will be reflected in a midgame upgrade that will allow Allied infantry to enter impassable terrain. Japanese will always have that capability. Unless anyone's read otherwise, nonnavigable rivers will be obstacles, not the conventional Civ2 highways.

I'm not sure how much of the very early part I want to do. I was leaning toward starting with the crossing of the Sittang River. Again, that decision stems from limited reading.

[McMonkey]

Allied units gaining 'Crosses impassable terrain' ability as the game progresses seems a good move. Maybe you could have it triggered by something that happens on the first Chindit raid (i.e. city taken).

Having nonnavigable rivers as obstacles seems to make perfect sense though some of the smaller streams/rivers could be the old style as I believe it is often easier to travel along the riverbank when in a valley than try and follow the highground. I just know this from personal experience though I am not 100% sure it is accurate for the game

The map looks sound. My only real comment would be to make the map as large as possible. IMHO this gives a campaign type game more of a tactical level and avoids it becoming a series of city sieges? But what do I know

Scanner still broken but I am sure the correct driver is hidden out there somewhere. Will post some maps etc when it is working again.

[Boco]

Whenever you can Werd, I'd be grateful. My current record for scenario building is 1.7 days of designing per historical day. For this campaign, that may be a while.

As for scale, I'll be considering several items:[list=1][*]Number of rounds of combat that I want an unmoved unit to initiate in one turn; [*]Road bonus and maximum aircraft range that is needed (they're inversely related); [*]City density (AI seems to work better with closely spaced clusters). [/list=1]Any tips for getting a smart AI on big maps?

Aside from the supply line in India that Case mentioned and a few near Rangoon, RR's won't be a major factor in this scenario.

The trigger for better-trained infantry will likely be either a tech or a completed wonder. I like to make a player work the cities to get good reinforcements.

[Case]

Originally posted by Boco
I'm not sure how much of the very early part I want to do. I was leaning toward starting with the crossing of the Sittang River. Again, that decision stems from limited reading.

The first part of the campaign was basically a cake walk for the Japanese in which they completely out-manoeuved and out fought the ill-trained, equipped and led British forces. As this would be very dull (it would result in something like the first turns of Red Front set in a jungle) you could easily skip it.

Originally posted by Boco
The trigger for better-trained infantry will likely be either a tech or a completed wonder. I like to make a player work the cities to get good reinforcements.

Good idea. The British had to put a lot of effort into converting the Indian Army units in India from what was basically a para-military force into a first-rate fighting army. The end result was to turn what was one of the worst armies in the world in 1941 (the divisions in North Africa excepted) into what was clearly one of the best in 1945.

[McMonkey]

Scanner just decided to start working again. Could not get the map to fit on the screen so I zipped it up instead.

Burma Map 1

[McMonkey]

Burma Map 2

Could not zip this one at full size but managed to cut it down to fit screen. Still finding best way to upload these scans!

[McMonkey]

Burma Map 3

Still struggling with sizes of scan. If you don't want these maps cluttering up your thread then I could e-mail you direct. Have to go to work now anyway!

[Boco]

Thanks Werd. I was just reading on this campaign, so your timing's good. Are these from "Images of War"?

Now I see your point about a link between 1st Chindit op and retraining. Although the Chindits were not a success in many ways, they did demonstrate convincingly that the British/Indian army could fight well in the jungle. That was an vital leap for the Allies. The route to improved jungle-trained troops will involve several techs. At least one will be enabled by a CityTaken or UnitKilled trigger.

[Case]

Originally posted by Boco
Now I see your point about a link between 1st Chindit op and retraining. Although the Chindits were not a success in many ways, they did demonstrate convincingly that the British/Indian army could fight well in the jungle. That was an vital leap for the Allies. The route to improved jungle-trained troops will involve several techs. At least one will be enabled by a CityTaken or UnitKilled trigger.

Yeah, all the Allied ground forces had to learn how to fight in the jungle the hard way in 1941-42 and then sucessfully institutionalised those lessons through setting up training programs.

From memory, Slim wrote that to build up the confidence of his army in 1942-43 he often sent out large British/Indian forces to clobber much smaller Japanese forces - I think that the ratio he used was to send a brigade to wipe out a company outpost. From 1944 onwards the massive investment in training was producing jungle-ready troops and units.

In civ terms, you could model this by not letting the British build barracks until late in the scenario and force them to gain veterans by bashing up Japanese units and then resting these units after combat to regain their strength. This would also do a good job of modeling the slow development of the infrastructure needed to support a large army on the Indian-Burmese border.

[McMonkey]

From what I know about the Arakan battles a lot of Slim's success came from the blooding of his troops in prestige operations that were designed to dispel the myth of Japanese invincibility. The first Chindit raid, though militarily questionable, helped boost the morale of the Commonwealth forces and showed that the Japanese could be beaten at their own game.
I really need to read more about the war in Burma as a lot of my knowledge may be popular myth at the moment!

The maps are from 'Atlas of World War II by Richard Natkiel'. Pretty standard stuff for the most part but quite handy. I have a few more to reduce in size so they will fit on Apoly.

[Boco]

In EAv2, I upgraded early-war infantry to much more capable late-war infantry via Leonardo. In this one, I think I'm going to force the player to upgrade without Leo.

Good idea about Barracks and making the player work for vets!

Werd, those maps have a little more road and village detail than the maps I've seen. So if you have other maps at this level of detail (I already have the Osprey Meiktila book), post away at your convenience.

I've already seen a few camps about what was the overriding Allied objective for the campaign: tie up Japanese, restore Burma to the Empire, or supply China to make it a postwar arsenal of democracy.