New Scenario: Zweiter WeltKrieg

[Cal]

I've done some searching... and I believe Theme2.wav is the verse from the following song.

Lied der Panzertruppen

"Stuermt oder schneit, ob die Sonne uns lacht,
Bestaubt sind die Gesichter,
Doch froh ist unser Sinn, ja unser Sinn:
Es braust unser Panzer im Sturme dahin."

So that's one mystery solved...

[kobayashi]

quote: Originally posted by Cal on 04-25-2001 05:52 PM I played one turn as the Allies, but after about all of my cities went into civil disorder, I gave up and tried the Axis. Oh, and one last suggestion, make the League of Nations wonder obsolete. A human player would have no problem breaking the forced peace treaties left and right, but a computer controlled opponent would. I'm pretty sure Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933.

The Allies are not easy to play. You need to have a luxury of 20% and then build secret police everywhere to reduce corruption to a manageable level. (This simulates when America's contribution to the war effort becomes meanigful). If the Allies survive (human player would most likely) to 50 turns, they will have an all powerful economy and will end up building almost ALL the wonders.

I will find something appropriate to make the League of Nations Obsolete.

Did anyone encounter a reluctance on the part of the AIs to build fighters?

[kobayashi]

After changing the corruption factor for Axis, hopefully it will not be that easy to go straight to London. Just a ew questions:

How did you get rid of the British Naval Fleet. Subs or Bombers? Would having less U-boats help?

Have you tried playing as the Allies? I think it is harder and I could make them the default single-player tribe.

[kobayashi]

I've fixed up the scenario and further to the changes mentioned above for version 1.2 (which was never released). I have made further adjustments and improvements and generally it is not as easy to play Axis as before. The result is version 1.3. This will be my final version for the time being as I think I have taken into account all the comments sent to me. It is the last scenario on the following website:


http://geo5.free.fr/civ2.html


finally the actual changes:

VERSION 1.3 CHANGES
-------------------
a. AA Battery role changed from Air-superiority to Defend.

b. Gave city fortification to Kiel and Brest as there is where the free torpedoes appear. Changed the mechanism for giving the Axis free torpedoes to make it more random.

c. Neutrality Wonder expires with War Adjustment.

d. Allies must now have Lightning (Twin Fusulage) before they can research Mustang(Advanced Piston).

e. Added Industrial Estates to Vologda, Kirov and Dnepropetrovsk.

f. Added a new Allied city, Inverness, in northern Great Britain and added a transport corridor to the North.

g. Axis free support for units reduced from 5 to 4.

h. Fixed 'farmland' message you get when you discover Large Airframe.

i. Changed winning condition for Axis to capturing both London and Moscow.

j. Reduced the defense factors of the heavier tanks and increased the attack factors of the more advanced bombers to increase the pace of the game in the second half.

[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited May 08, 2001).]

[Dienstag]

Hi Kobayashi!

I just got my first look at Zweiter Weltkrieg (v1.3), and I gotta say good job. However, just south of El Alamein is tundra! Did I get a terrain file wrong, or what's going on? I should probably be able to figure this out myself, but I just thought I'd ask. Thanks.

[Cal]

I really should've said something sooner.

The message at the start of the scenario is very historically inaccurate.

"Rudolf Hess, who was planning to defect to Britain changes his mind and becomes Fuhrer."

Rudoolf Hess did not parachute into Scotland to defect. He did so because he thought he could single-handedly negotiate a peace settlement with Britain. He was convinced Germany would win the war and destroy Britain unless peace was immediately agreed upon. He wanted to pull off "a very risky show of statesmanship" to impress Hitler. He was not defecting because he felt Germany was doomed, as this first event implies.

The British treated him like a prisoner of war.

Oh, and his ultimate fate was to be tried at Nuremburg, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mostly because his mind was in complete shambles.
[This message has been edited by Cal (edited May 11, 2001).]

[klesh]

Not to speak for anyone, but I think the aim of ZWK is alternative history. I know that the statement in the scenario is based on history, and that is what you are calling into question, but I think the author just wanted a quick way to not have Adolf as leader. It's use is rather in passing so its importance is minimal.

[Cal]

Yes... but Hitler's death is the only change, and it implies that if Hitler hadn't died, Hess would've defected to the British, which wasn't what happened.
I didn't ask Kobayashi to change it, I just pointed it out because it seemed odd.

[kobayashi]

quote: Originally posted by Dienstag on 05-08-2001 08:36 PM Hi Kobayashi! I just got my first look at Zweiter Weltkrieg (v1.3), and I gotta say good job. However, just south of El Alamein is tundra! Did I get a terrain file wrong, or what's going on? I should probably be able to figure this out myself, but I just thought I'd ask. Thanks.

The Map is originally from Third Reich (M Jazensky) and I have left it as it originally was. I noticed this myself and actually the tundra looks like white sand and is used as such in the scenario (in Africa). Unfortunately its also found in the north so renaming it to sand or something would cause another problem. If I remember my high school geography, any place that is arid, including the tundra, is called a desert (a feeble justification).

[kobayashi]

Thanks for pointing the Hess thing out Cal and thanks FMK for the reply - you are right that I just wanted Hitler out of the way to justify an alternative history.

I am aware of the reasons why Hess did what he did but I thought that the diplomatic attempt wasn't known until much later and as far as anyone thought in 1939, he defected. I could be wrong - I just assumed this without checking.

[Kull]

Kobayashi: Your Star Trek scenarios are noteworthy in many respects, not least of which is the care and effort you put into the maps. The graphics are outstanding, and they really do transport you "out of this world". For that reason in particular, the ZWK map is extremely disappointing. There aren't any "new" terrain types, which is surprising, but far worse is the use of the "standard" types. Tundra is sprinkled all over the place, and even equating it to "sand" doesn't make sense given it's presence in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. It would have been easy enough to create an extra desert type (using glacier) and still have tundra reserved for the north part of the map. Although frankly, given the absence of Northern Russia and most of the Nordic states, you probably could do away with it altogether. Likewise why is "jungle" sprinkled across France and Eastern Europe? Swamp makes sense in a few of those places, yet doesn't seem to be used at all. The specials too are just not appropriate. Buffalo, Silk, Yaks, Walrus, and Furs simply don't belong on this map. Most recent WWII scenarios have done really cool things with the extra terrains and specials, but this one doesn't even meet minimal standards of "believability".

No offense, but your prior work has been so meticulous that this really stands out like a sore thumb. Especially since every other aspect of the scenario is quite nice and exemplifies thought and originality. So please take this in the spirit with which it was given, and provide this map a MAJOR facelift!

Note: I realize you borrowed "unaltered" the map from MJ's Third Reich scenario, but apparently you didn't look at the associated files. The terrain1.gif and rules.txt clearly show that tundra and jungle were replaced by different terrain types.
[This message has been edited by Kull (edited May 15, 2001).]

[kobayashi]

Kull,

No offence taken and thanks for your (diplomatic) comments. I'm not going to be too defensive about the terrain issue because everything you said is true. I simply used the Third Reich map as it was with minimal changes. Its just that I didn't realise that new terrain would be so important to everyone (you are definitely not the only one to complain about this).

To be honest, it never occured to me that there was anything wrong (other than being common) with the default terrain and it was a very low priority for me. I only made new terrain for my star trek scenarios because there weren't any available. I thought that the new ZWK cities would give the map the right feel and the cities themselves probably took 5 times the work needed compared to what it'll take to fiddle around with terrain.

So you see I wouldn't think of the terrain problem as 'un-meticulous' work, just a misunderstanding. But now that you mention it, having beavers and birds isn't something that everyone can appreciate. I guess its my idiosyncracy that I usually don't pay much attention to the name of terrain, just how it looks. I thought the 'jungle' was nice to have as some riverside vegetation (marsh or something). Same thing caused the tundra problem.

Well, to sum up, everyone can't be wrong so I will do a facelift in version 2.0 and of course pay more attention to the terrain in particular.

BTW, did you ever play to the end and as who?

[This message has been edited by kobayashi (edited May 15, 2001).]

[kobayashi]

Dear everyone,

I have made changes in response to the comments by Dienstag, Cal and of course Kull. I've already gone from 1.0 to 1.1 to 1.3 so I don't think I'll release the next version yet cause suggestions for changes keep popping up once in a while. When I am satisfied nothing else needs changing, I will release the final 2.0 version.

In the meanwhile, if anyone has previously downloaded vesion 1.3, I would be happy to e-mail the few 'facelift' files. In the words of Kull, the changes make the ZWK look "Muccccch better!!!" Just e-mail me or leave your request (plus e-mail address) on this thread.


As extracted from the readme:

9.05 VERSION 2.0 CHANGES
------------------------
a. I have moved some of the terrain and added two new terrain types, grove and beach.

b. Most of the terrain bonuses have been changed so that they are more appropriate.

c. Trade items have been changed to different basic minerals and elements.

d. The look of the transport corridor (road) has also been adjusted so it will not be mistaken for railroad.

e. Tanks over forty tons (Panther, Tiger, Tiger II, Stalin and Pershing) can now ignore city fortifications.

f. Created advice files so that the advisors are more effective and explain what units and improvements are for.

g. Both Soviet and Axis AI are more likely to attack each other as the scenario progresses. Soviets and Axis can no longer negotiate.

h. The game doesn't say that Hess was planning to defect any more.

i. Free Axis torpeodes now replace lost ones on a one for one basis.

j. Renamed Dorset and Norfolk (both county names) to Southampton and Yarmouth. Bratislavia now belongs to the Axis.

k. Added more German units to the Lowlands area to make sure the AI can blitzkrieg all the way to France. Added a few more Italian and British units in North Africa.

l. The war heroes pedia entry was slightly too long for the MGE window so it was shortened. Added that the wonders expire with the loss of secondary objectives in the Guderain and After Depression pedia entries.

m. Made Pz IV icon smaller so it does not look like a heavy tank. Also made minor adjustments to other unit icons.

n. Added new event messages for P-51, Lancaster and V1. Enhanced other existing event messages. The events file now exceeds 20k.

o. Fixed bugs in the tech tree. Axis Bomber and not Axis allows the building of HE 111. Prerequisite of the Atomic Bomb tech is now Large Airframe and Nuclear Fission. The Snorchel wonder requires Radar Detector not Acoustic Torpedo.

p. the Axis tech tree picture is available in gif format.

q. Added more German units to the Lowlands area to make sure the AI can blitzkrieg all the way to France. Added a few more Italian and British units in North Africa.

[kobayashi]

Last call for comments before I release version 2.0

[Dienstag]

I can't think of any reason not to release it at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your dedication in responding to players' comments. I just want you to know your work is appreciated. Thanks.