World War Two Europa vII

[McMonkey]

Now that I have finished Bonaparte III I will be trying to finish off two of my proper single player scenarios; The Balkan Wars (once my motivation returns) and WWII Europa.

Although I was happy with WWII Europa as my first attempt at a scenario, I realise it had some shortfalls. I had planned to fix these in a ToT version called Fortress Europe. For this purpose I created a tech-tree and got things to a very rough (alpha?) stage.

I have been thinking a lot about Europa and have decided I would like to put right the mistakes as well as add some new ideas before I start on a ToT version.

Over the last year I have learned a hell of a lot about scenario building and acquired a lot of cool techniques and ideas form the members here and the scenarios I have been working with.

This new thread is a neat way of combining the old WWII Europa thread:

WWII EUROPA

and the Fortress Europe one:

FORTRESS EUROPE

I still have the feedback, in note form, that I received from AGRICOLA and Eivind. I also have a big list of ideas that were gathered in preparation for Fortress Europe.

Along with my new ideas and views I hope to make World War Two Europa vII a completed article.

(I know it is not strictly necessary to let you guys know all of the inner workings of my tiny mind but if you would humour me I will be very grateful)

[Cyrion]

If I can help you with it, give a shout!

[McMonkey]

Thanks Cyrion. When I get to the playtest stage I may well take you up on that.

BTW I was doing okay at LL until I got too settled down near the watering hole in the Dacian forest and started taking heavy losses. Luckily I saved my game when I got the men to the rafts and I will have another bash with a new strategy!

Here are some of the ideas I have had for Europa vII:

*Scrap the anti tank guns (useless as there are no 2 move/ 1 HP units!), the Escort Bomber, the Cossack and the Commando and replace them with German Heavy Panzer (Tiger), Russian Assault Gun, Fortress (for the neutrals), Glider, Allied Paratroopers (from beginning) and Allied Jet. (DONE)

*Atomic Bomb becomes the Atomic Bomber (still 1 shot weapon). (DONE)

*Move the partizan to the proper slot so they appear outside captured Soviet cities! (DONE)

*Add the new tech-tree (DONE)

*Remove nearly all the neutral units and replace them with static, almost invulnerable, fortresses. This should eliminate the 'Too many units' problem and stop the Portuguese navy sinking the Torch invasion convoy!

*Add strategic bombing. Either the Factory Unit method or the special terrain/air settler-bomber method (see Cifer Almasy's thread).

*Create an event to regulate trade production + sort out the allied finances.

*Vastly strengthen the Atlantic wall.

*Increase movement rates.

*Alter the stats to force combined arms rather than just tank/mobile gun combos.

*Create a few house rules to prevent resourceful players shortcutting to Overlord 1941

*Generally make the game a lot harder for the player!

I am sure there are more ideas in my notes. I am off to sort through them now, wish me luck!

[McMonkey]

Just remembered:

*Make land stackable. Sea will remain unstackable.

*Borrowing from John Ellis' scenarios, no barracks, ports or airports. Units become veterans in the field. There will be a few exceptions for certain important cities.

[McMonkey]

And I have finally realised that no scenario is complete without a set of Curt's cities

[curtsibling]

Would sunflowers be a big resource in WW2?
Might be better with something strategic, like farms...

Just musing...

[Stefan Härtel]

To be honest, that's way too much forest for that era.

[McMonkey]

Surely people in WWII needed sunflower oil! How did McDonalds fry their chips

I think I made the map to look pretty so maybe a few more appropriate resources would be in order!

Good point Steph. There is definitely too much forest in France and Germany. Maybe that would be what it looked like in ancient times!?! I will thin them out somewhat. Obviously the Hurtgenwald and Ardennes will need to stay.

I remember before someone commented about the inaccurate hills near Essen and Cologne. I will endeavour to rectify this. If I do decide to use a spare terrain type with very high shield output to go next to industrial cities then I can do away with most of the inaccurate hills in the Ruhr area.

I am willing to change quite a lot to get this project right. When I made the first WWII Europa I was not even aware of the Apolyton forum. Now there is no limit to the possibilities! (Obviously there IS a limit, but you get what I mean )

[Stefan Härtel]

It looks like sometime in the Middle Ages, I'd say.
The hills aren't *that* inaccurate, but I'd put less in there for better balance. An "industrial" terrain type would certainly be a good choice.

[McMonkey]

I realise I said Steph before instead of Stef. Sorry!

Britain used to be covered in forests until they were cut down to build ships (that's what I have been told anyway) and clear land for farming. I guess the rest of Europe's wild forests suffered the same fate.

I like terrain to be varied in my maps. I think it adds to the gameplay. Very flat all grassland maps may be more accurate but I think a few woods and hills add tactical possibilities to the warfare, especially when defending.

I do agree though that I have crammed a little too much into this map. Nothing a few hours of shift+F8 won't solve

City placement may also need to be altered slightly. I think they are all in the correct place but I may take some from areas and add elsewhere. I have already deleted one from Russia and created Bizerte in North Africa but I am sure there are more.

Got to get some sleep now as I tend to start writing codswallop when tired. I must be getting old. Years ago I could stay up half the night playing Civ. Now it gets to midnight and I'm a wreck

[McMonkey]

I have decided to try and use the special high shield terrain/strategic bomber idea.

What I need to know is how to make air settlers who are able to transform terrain. Can I make any unit an engineer? Is the engineer slot the only one that allows this ability?

I know there is info somewhere but I cannot find it, hopefully someone knows off the top of their head. I know it iseasier to do this in ToT but this scenario is for MGE initially!

[McMonkey]

I have replaced the pretty but useless orchard terrain with industrial terrain. An strategic bomber will be able to transform this terrain to town (much less shields than industrial) in one or two turns if it is not shot down by enemy fighters. This will cut down the enemies production capabilities.

The screenshot is an example. I will need to swap all the industrial terrain to other types of terrain and then chose where to place the industrial squares!

[GhostOfDisco]

But... why are the Nazis using British architecture?

I'd suggest trying to split the civs into seperate architecutal styles (Germanic for the Nazis, Russian for the Soviets, Islamic for the Turks etc.), though, given my own little gfx mod for WWII Europa, I must say that Curt's "Scandanavian" city set (he made it for a ToT version of "Red Front") makes an excellent "generic WWII city" set.

Also, are you going to upgrade the terrain graphics to 24-bit glory?

[McMonkey]

I would give the nations different city styles if I could get CivTweak to work! It works on other scenarios but not this one.

What do you mean by upgrade to 24 bit? Do you mean make it for ToT

Here is an updated example of the Industrial areas:

[Stefan Härtel]

Looking at that map again, I'd say Groningen is out of place... it should be much more to the west. The town you have there could be Oldenburg, though.