The Distant Rumblings of War!

[GhostOfDisco]

Why is it whenever I get around to taking Berlin (as the Allies), you release another playtest? :P

Anyway, this time around I decided to play as the Finns for a change. I took Leningrad quite quickly (which I quickly renamed St. Petersburg) before cutting a south/east-directed swath of land in front of the German advance, conquering Moscow and getting all the way to Stalingrad. However, my "lines" are pretty thin and the Nazis have managed to take some Soviet territory that was mine to take in the first place.

Not to mention a whole horde of Nazi units in between St. Petersburg and Moscow...

[curtsibling]

Did you find the Soviet cities too easy to take?
I assume you mustered a lot of artillery and Stukas?

I found the major commie towns hard to conquer...

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, in general I've found artillery to be a lot more valuable than armor, as I'm usually going from one city to besieging (or preparing to besiege a city), rather than a lot of field operations. Maybe that's because of the small space between cities, but I don't seem to use armor that much.

And then there's the fact that they usually go down before a fortified motorized infantry behind city walls (i.e. most of the cities in the game) it seems...

[curtsibling]

I had to make some changes to the SCN file, and I assume resaving it has nixed the hex changes to the barbs.

I am wondering if anyone (Catfish, if he is around) would be kind enough to reset the global barb alliance?

This hex tweak would much appreciated!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by GhostOfDisco
Well, in general I've found artillery to be a lot more valuable than armor, as I'm usually going from one city to besieging (or preparing to besiege a city), rather than a lot of field operations. Maybe that's because of the small space between cities, but I don't seem to use armor that much.

And then there's the fact that they usually go down before a fortified motorized infantry behind city walls (i.e. most of the cities in the game) it seems...

I do notice the tanks tend to get beaten easily...

Do you think increasing the firepower rating of the tanks might help?
Perhaps 2FP for small, 3FP for medium, and 4FP for heavies?

Or maybe multiplying the tank healthpoints to larger amounts might make them more survivable.
The artillery seems to be successful due to it's 8HP, perhaps tanks could do with a similar number.

Whaddya think?

[McMonkey]

CS

I will make you a batch file if you want. That will free up Mercator to work on CivSwap 2.0 which sounds very exciting.

I just made a new batch file very similar to the one you would need for Dictator 7 so it is all fresh in my mind and I can probably just tweak the one I made for D7!

When your scenario is finished you may well be able to replace the batch file with Civ Swap 2.0 so it may just be a temporary thing!

If you are interested let me know and I will do it tomorrow morning!

[Catfish]

Originally posted by curtsibling
I had to make some changes to the SCN file, and I assume resaving it has nixed the hex changes to the barbs.

I'm not sure how that would've happened unless you recreated the SCN file using an older saved game.

Originally posted by curtsibling
I am wondering if anyone (Catfish, if he is around) would be kind enough to reset the global barb alliance?

I'm still here.

[curtsibling]

I have a base save game that I make new SCNs from, and I used that to create the new one.

So if I make a save from the hex SCN, the settings will keep?
Good show - That will save a lot of bother in the future...!

And BTW - My sincere thanks for your help, mate!

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by McMonkey
CS

I will make you a batch file if you want. That will free up Mercator to work on CivSwap 2.0 which sounds very exciting.

I just made a new batch file very similar to the one you would need for Dictator 7 so it is all fresh in my mind and I can probably just tweak the one I made for D7!

When your scenario is finished you may well be able to replace the batch file with Civ Swap 2.0 so it may just be a temporary thing!

If you are interested let me know and I will do it tomorrow morning!

No problem!

I imagine it will require putting the Rules, Events, and Units into the order used by Red Front? Like Units1, Units2, etc?

In addition to that, it will have to change the cities and terrain too.

If you DL the files, you will see what needs done. D7 is more or less the same setup as Red Front...

No big rush, but it will be interesting to try out a batch to see if it speeds things.

Cheers!

[curtsibling]

I am going to tweak the tank settings, as I think they are too week as is.

To compensate, I will make weaker infantry like the Red Army slightly tougher.

[civ2units]

Originally posted by curtsibling


I do notice the tanks tend to get beaten easily...

Do you think increasing the firepower rating of the tanks might help?
Perhaps 2FP for small, 3FP for medium, and 4FP for heavies?

Or maybe multiplying the tank healthpoints to larger amounts might make them more survivable.
The artillery seems to be successful due to it's 8HP, perhaps tanks could do with a similar number.

Whaddya think?

In fact that the Infantry was available to destroy a tank I would only go with the higher HP like you did with the Artillery. If you also increase the FP the tanks could have too much power.
During my Russian game I never build the T-26 because I lost them in nearly every battle with the enemy.

[civ2units]

How did you manage, that only some coastal cities can build ships?

[McMonkey]

@Civ2units
I would imagine CS used the amazing CivCity tool!

Here is the batch file. It seems to be working fine but I would test it once you have renamed your bitmap and rules files.

Don't forget to include the CHOICE file in your scenario folder. I forgot while building this batch and spent five minutes trying to work out what I had done wrong before the penny dropped!

Here is the format to name your Bitmap and text files:

Cities: CITIESSUMMER / CITIESWINTER
Terrain 1: TERRAIN1SUMMER / TERRAIN1WINTER
Terrain 2: TERRAIN2SUMMER / TERRAIN2WINTER
Units: UNITSSUMMER41 / UNITSWINTER41 etc...
Rules: RULESSUMMER41 etc...
Events: EVENTSSUMMER41 etc...

Of course you can change this quite easily. Just right click on the batch file and click Edit. Make whatever changes you want to do. Save the file as WHATEVER.BAT (.BAT must be in capitals), then run the batch file to check the changes you made were correct.

[PietH]

The game looks really great.

So far I must agree, that on the General level, playing as the germans, the first generation of tanks don't have much impact, other than rushing towards cities emptied by the luftwaffe. Attacking power is rather poor, even against units in the field.

About the graphics, I noticed the infantry unit is back to one soldier, in stead of the group of soldiers in Dictator 6? And a new unit, afaik, the General. Is there a special purpose, or just a fun addition? Any consequence in capturing/losing one?

About my game: I managed to take moscow by october '41. Leningrad is a lot harder, since it has air defences, which Moscow does not have. Maybe that should be added, I don't know. By october '41, the line goes from Narva, to Moscow, down to Kursk, Dnepopetrovsk, Krasno and Sevastopol. Very curious to see what winter will bring in a few turns.

The Luftwaffe is doing all the work basically. The artillery can't keep up to speed so they arrive too late for battle. I might redirect them all towards Leningrad to see if they're any use there.

I find production in the cities too slow. Most German cities have a production of around 20, where most usefull units cost at least 100 to build. Maybe after some extensive mining and such, production will go up. But that will take a long time to accomplish.
It does seem the engineers produce mines faster, which I'm happy with.

The game is running fine. but I yet have to change into the next season.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by McMonkey
@Civ2units
I would imagine CS used the amazing CivCity tool!

Here is the batch file. It seems to be working fine but I would test it once you have renamed your bitmap and rules files.

Don't forget to include the CHOICE file in your scenario folder. I forgot while building this batch and spent five minutes trying to work out what I had done wrong before the penny dropped!

Here is the format to name your Bitmap and text files:

Cities: CITIESSUMMER / CITIESWINTER
Terrain 1: TERRAIN1SUMMER / TERRAIN1WINTER
Terrain 2: TERRAIN2SUMMER / TERRAIN2WINTER
Units: UNITSSUMMER41 / UNITSWINTER41 etc...
Rules: RULESSUMMER41 etc...
Events: EVENTSSUMMER41 etc...

Of course you can change this quite easily. Just right click on the batch file and click Edit. Make whatever changes you want to do. Save the file as WHATEVER.BAT (.BAT must be in capitals), then run the batch file to check the changes you made were correct.

Thanks a lot, old chap! Great work!

I will test this out and take my first stumbling steps into batch editing today!