Fortress Europe

[Jerec]

Since the Allied income is -300 g per turn, and the factory reward comes every 2 turns at the very max, Lend Lease is still necessary in my mind. You don't need the economy on a razor's edge, just make sure that the Allied player has to fight for rush building funds of any kind.

How many factories will be initially placed? If only one, I would be afraid of sending my bombers on wild goose chases all over Germany looking for the elusive unit.

It would be essential to turn off the factories with the capture of multiple cities. For instance-

After looking at the German defenses on a whole in Europe, I firmly decided to land at Bremen or Hamburg. It would be risky with the gigantic German fleet in Norway's ports, but I would be able to avoid that very nasty belt of defenses on Germany's border. Innocently avoiding Cologne. To avoid loopholes, you would probably need to shut off the factories on the capture of any city on Germany's borders, not including the east border.

[GhostOfDisco]

I suppose I might need to refine the OFF part of the event to prevent a clever player bypassing Cologne!

But what if, given the situation, it might be realistic/plausible for the Allied forces to bypass Cologne?

[McMonkey]

Initially there are 18 factories place near major German cities. I will set several German cities to turn on Axis flag 10. I think this is a good system now. To get money to spend where needed and avoid improvements being sold off the Allied player will need to escort shipments of Lend Lease across the Atlantic and launch bombing raids.

I suppose you could bypass all of the trigger cities but this would mean leaving loads of German units in your rear areas during the final push into Germany.

I have also decided to limit the production of Battleships to Belfast and one US city. This will force the player to use more Cruisers as escorts and really make use of Maritime Bombers and Destroyers to hunt down the Axis U-Boats.

[Jerec]

Originally posted by McMonkey
Initially there are 18 factories place near major German cities. I will set several German cities to turn on Axis flag 10. I think this is a good system now. To get money to spend where needed and avoid improvements being sold off the Allied player will need to escort shipments of Lend Lease across the Atlantic and launch bombing raids.

I suppose you could bypass all of the trigger cities but this would mean leaving loads of German units in your rear areas during the final push into Germany.

All I said was that I would land at Hamburg, which doesn't mean that I wouldn't mop up the nasty German defense belt from the unprotected rear. After that, I would make a clean sweep of France before driving into Germany. I would definitely take Cologne (it's a very tempting target with 100+ shield production), but only after I made a beachhead in Hamburg.

I have also decided to limit the production of Battleships to Belfast and one US city. This will force the player to use more Cruisers as escorts and really make use of Maritime Bombers and Destroyers to hunt down the Axis U-Boats.

Cruisers were all I was building anyway. Battleships were too expensive to build in the first place, and destroyers were as helpless as freighters against sub attacks. Since the difficulty is on Deity, the Axis subs always know exactly where my Destroyers are. Cruisers/Battleships are the only ones that have a chance to survive a sub attack.

Btw, would you set one of the cities in England/America to building Maritime Bombers? They are very effective in the Atlantic, and I very much want to build more in that area. Right now, only Gibraltar and Nicosia are building Maritime Bombers.

[McMonkey]

Interesting that you are using Cruisers. That is what I hoped for when restricting Battleship production. I have made a note to set one initial city to produce Maritime Bombers. All British units are build-able via research. US units will be produced via events once the relevant tech has been researched. I have the template for a tech tree printout ready. As soon as I have modified the tech names and finalised the placement of units and improvements on the tree I will include it with the download.

I will need to cut off the Hamburg invasion route. Historically this would not have been a realistic option. Thanks for the heads up I want the preferable options to be Normandy, Pas De Calais or Brittany.

[McMonkey]

I have been making steady progress on this project over the past month. I hope to have the playtest ready soon. I just need to tie up a few loose ends and fix a few events which are not working.

I think the Battle of the Atlantic and Strategic bombing are now working OK. Will be interesting to find out if the theory stands up to testing!

Stay tuned.

[McMonkey]

Some advice?

What is the maximum number the Tech Paradigm can be set to?

As the tech rate is too fast I have been upping the Paradigm. I am up to 80 now and the techs still keep appearing every turn (while the science advisor says every 2 turns). Is 10/10 the maximum or should I try some larger figures, say 200?

Is there a way to formulate the speed of tech progress or is it just a case of trial and error?

Any help welcome.

I also need to get the diplomacy working. Basically I don't want any diplomacy, that will be handled via events.

I tried to use the Talker mask properly and it did not seem to work so I tried:

;Nobody can talk to anybody
@IF
Negotiation
talkermask=0b11111111111111111111111111111111
listenermask=0b11111111111111111111111111111111
@THEN
@ENDIF

This did not work either. I suppose I could include individual events for all nations but that will take up a lot of events space. Could someone point me in the right direction.

I have finally got some free time to work on this project and have spent the morning tidying up the files and going through my list of things to do which seems endless! I am hoping to have a rough playtest version together soon. After seeing how much input Curtsibling got for Dictator 7 I realised that my idealistic notion of releasing a flaw free final version would mean years of delay and it would be better to put it out there for critique. Its playable and fairly polished but I know I will end up generating a huge new list of things to add/ and improve. Playtest volunteers welcome.

Right, enough waffle, back to work

[Jerec]

Wouldn't this type of event work for diplomacy?

@IF
NEGOTIATION
talker=ANYBODY
talkertype=HumanOrComputer
listener=ANYBODY
listenertype=HumanOrComputer
@THEN
@ENDIF

[McMonkey]

Er...oh yeah

I guess there is no point in using the talker mask if all I want is to stop negotiations.

I think I will post the files on the Scenario League later tonight if anyone wants to take a look. It may not be a masterpiece but it is a vast improvement on WWII Europa. Its a bit lengthy so you probably won't finish it in an evening but I hope it is challenging enough to keep players interested for the duration. I love an epic!

In future I will try and focus on shorter more focused scenarios as something this big takes up loads of time and effort.

[McMonkey]

Make that tommorow night for the files

[curtsibling]

Looking good McMonkey!

I think you are finding out what I discovered, that these epic scenarios are big eaters of your time!

It's be worth it in the end though - FE seems like a real winner!

[McMonkey]

Hopefully so. Sometimes bigger is not necessarily better. I have learned my lesson. Should be able to post the Alpha (that is the initial test right?) files after the England vs USA game tonight.

[McMonkey]

FORTRESS EUROPE ALPHA

I expect there are a million and one things I have forgotten to do but I hope the scenario is ready for its first Alpha test.

Please take a look at the Read Me html file. Hope a few of you can find some spare time to have a play around and let me know what you think.

Fortress Europe alpha test files

[Jerec]

Beginning Observations...

I think most of the little bugs have been found. But there are a few...


1) Cardiff and Bristol can't build ships.

2) Methinks there are too many infantry in the U.S. cities, I took 1 out of each city to be ferried to Britain.

3) There aren't any cities in Britain or the U.S. building Maritime Bombers.

4) If 88mm can attack aircraft, why can't ordinary anti aircraft guns?


Battle of the Atlantic-

On the first turn my Maritime Bomber in Belfast destroyed a 4-unit sub stack in Ireland's inlets. Every turn after that, Ireland became a sub-killing ground. They go in for one turn, and they don't come out. Permanently.

I took a quick glance in cheat mode, and noticed that the U-boats are congregating around Brest too. See the pic I attached.

The turn after I spotted the Brest swarm, they darted out and blew 2 of my destroyer-baits out of the water by Cardiff and Plymouth, along with a Cruiser. When my Maritime Bombers and port destroyers checked out the bait location by Cardiff, I found a 5-unit stack and a 9-unit stack. In the channel I destroyed 8-9 subs scattered about.

During all this hullabaloo by Ireland and in the Channel, I sneaked 5 Lend Leases into Britain above Ireland. I have 2 Lend Leases and 2 Cruisers in each convoy stack. Only 1 U-boat attacked the convoys, damaging a cruiser close to the U.S.


Bomber Raids-

None. Knowing that the AI will make their seasonal fighter horde and dash it against Britain, I haven't sent any bombers out. yet.



Looking good!

[curtsibling]

Good stuff- you are playing the AI a merry dance and landing objectives whilst he is distracted!