Simulating Blitzkreig "Hearts of Iron Style" in Civ2

[Willhelm II]

Working on a scenario now, tinkering with an idea to make an effective representation of Operation Barbarossa on a european scenario based a European Map using a Blitzkreig style warfare system I'm developing.

Here's the idea:

The whole map will be covered in fortresses (with the exception of Mountains, Swamps, Glacier, Deserts, etc). This will allow for 'front lines' to be developed. The Soviet Civ will have 'Leonardo's Workshop' but renamed to something like "Patriotic War". All alone the Soviet Boarder will be about two infantry on each square of the boarder, forming the soviet 'Front Line'. ALL these units will have the same defence and attack factors of the German units but will have a movement factor of Zero. All Tanks in this will have the pass through ZOC feature, and thus allow tanks to 'Move behind' Enemy lines. After a certain amount of turns an event will Trigger after Operation Barbarossa which will give the Soviet's a 'Patriotic War' tech, which basically is an upgrade on the Soviet Troops to allow them to have a movement factor. When this happens, the Leonardo wonder will upgrade all the Soviet units and thus the mighty onslaught will fall on the Germans (Like in Real life).

Any thoughts? Would this work?

[Elensar]

Excellent way of representing the advantages of the panzer spearheads and Germany having, after its initial victories of surround-and-smash, a serious problem.

And only one event is needed! Amazing.

Is this, out of curiosity, for ToT?

The only thing I see that I would advise against is that the Russian Infantry having equal attack/defnese to the German Infantry is a little much.


But that's scenario balance, not triggers.

[Cyrion]

And one other thing which might be important for balance is that the updgraded unit will NOT be veterans.

Otherwise, very interesting idea!

[AGRICOLA]

Re: Simulating Blitzkreig "Hearts of Iron Style" in Civ2

Sorry, but I don't see how this can possibly work.

Originally posted by Willhelm II
The whole map will be covered in fortresses (with the exception of Mountains, Swamps, Glacier, Deserts, etc). This will allow for 'front lines' to be developed.

Do you mean stackable terrain as in TOT or invisible fortresses in MGE? How would this allow front lines to develop?

Originally posted by Willhelm II
All alone the Soviet Boarder will be about two infantry on each square of the boarder, forming the soviet 'Front Line'.

You mean that they are going to stay there until the Russians counterattack? What if the Germans wipe them out? Do you really expect them to bypass major Russian concentrations? What if they are hundreds of kilometers behind the front when the Russians start to counterattack?

Originally posted by Willhelm II
ALL these units will have the same defence and attack factors of the German units but will have a movement factor of Zero.

Of which German units? Infantry, tanks, artillery? The ones that they start the war with or the ones they develop later?

Originally posted by Willhelm II
All Tanks in this will have the pass through ZOC feature, and thus allow tanks to 'Move behind' Enemy lines. After a certain amount of turns an event will Trigger after Operation Barbarossa which will give the Soviet's a 'Patriotic War' tech, which basically is an upgrade on the Soviet Troops to allow them to have a movement factor. When this happens, the Leonardo wonder will upgrade all the Soviet units and thus the mighty onslaught will fall on the Germans (Like in Real life).

I still don't follow what you are proposing. Does "When this happens, the Leonardo wonder will upgrade all the Soviet units" include only Russian infantry or are all types of Russian units immobilized at the start?

Giving the Russians a tech will not do anything to upgrade units. Only building Leonardo in some city will do that. Leonardo is notoriously fickle about what it will upgrade, units have to be in certain slots. The only way I know of doing a mass upgrade would be to change RULES files.

[curtsibling]

A careful selection of unit slots would have to be picked in
order to make sure the Soviet forces upgrade properly...

But that could be covered by making the German forces
occupy the 'extra' slots...The idea has good merit...!

The game would have to be German player only though,
to make the experience more fun...

[Case]

Re: Simulating Blitzkreig "Hearts of Iron Style" in Civ2

Originally posted by Willhelm II
When this happens, the Leonardo wonder will upgrade all the Soviet units and thus the mighty onslaught will fall on the Germans (Like in Real life).

That's not really what happened - the Soviets gradually introducted new equipment and restructed and retrained units. The Red Army wasn't fully re-equipped and reorganised until 1943 - during 1942 many units were woefully short of equipment or still using obselete kit.

[techumseh]

I get what Will has in mind, and I'm pretty sure it would work. I did something similar in Red October, with German and Austro-Hungarian units immobile at the start of the scenario. On turn 3, St. Leo converts them to mobile units for the Central Powers offensive against the Bolsheviks. Later, it converts them to defensless "deserter" units when the armistice is signed. The same pre-req and obsolete techs can be used to replace different pairs of units, if they have different roles; eg. "attack" "air superiority" "naval transport" and so on.

[curtsibling]

Indeed, if the correct techs are awarded to the reds, then it
could simulate key capabilities or changing conditions within
the Soviet forces...Could create an interesting game!

[Willhelm II]

Thank you all for your input.

As always I have difficulty with making tech trees; what's the usual method people go about when making a tech tree? Certain techs slots need to be considered, and as always it comes accross as such a complicated task. Anyone know of a good method they use when making a tech tree? Designing them I have no trouble with, it's just the making that I have difficulties with.

Also, what unit values would you recommend for a Blitzkreig style of warfare where the whole map is covered with fortresses?

Thanks!

[Case]

Originally posted by Willhelm II
Also, what unit values would you recommend for a Blitzkreig style of warfare where the whole map is covered with fortresses?

At the risk of sounding glib, whatever works in your scenario. The meaning of the values you assign to units are obviously relative, so it's impossible to be prescriptive. I'd suggest that you check out John Ellis's Bonaparte scenario for some ideas on how to creatively use unit values in a map covered with fortresses.

[McMonkey]

Take a look at this document by William Keenan at Cradle of Civilization:
Fantastic Worlds Advance Slot Properties

I have found this to be an indispensable guide when putting together a tree. About half (?) of the slots have some kind of effect to consider.

I am usually lazy and pinch the original tree and move some slots about, rename techs and move units , wonders and improvements about. One thing I would recommend is making a paper copy of your tree listing all the prerequisites by their codes (IE. Tra / Mas etc...).
This way when you come to move slots about it is easier to keep track of what you are doing.

Working from a paper copy it is easy to transfer the info to the rules file.

Re: Blitzkrieg
One way to keep an offensives momentum and avoid really long supply lines is to have events creating units in enemy cities from the start of the game. Obviously their spawning will be blocked but when the city is captured the event begins to trigger.
You can be quite efficient with this event by giving multiple co-ordinates:
Co-ordinates: 1, Moscow, 2, Vyazma, 3, Smolensk, 4, Minsk, 5, Brest-Litovsk, 6, Warsaw
This way the event begins spawning units in Warsaw. Once Brest-Litovsk is captured they start appearing there and so on until Moscow.

You can use the same method in reverse for the Russian defence. This way one event can move back or forwards depending on the flow of the game