Red Front 1-5 final beta test here!

[Colwyn]

NO civ stack is no good as it does give all units outside of cities the fort bonus thus +100% defence if you inrcease attack str to compensate then units in cities that don't get the +100% suffer and vice versa.

If I give airfields then all units get unlim moves (assumed)

[Colwyn]

How have you gone in this beta game

Please let me know for those that have downloaded and played it

[AGRICOLA]

RED FRONT 1.5 BETA

I'm afraid I've been treating the play testing as a tough problem and have been playing very slowly. It was pretty obvious that the altered unit parameters would make this much tougher than RF 1.4 and I didn't want to make any fatal errors right at the start.

It's now December 1941 and so far the German forces are doing very well, indeed a little better than historically. The Soviet defense line now runs through Murmansk, the 3 Finnish cities, Leningrad, Tikhvin, Cherepovets, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Kalinin, Fort Moscow (on river, 2 squares SW of Moscow), along the 3 old and 5 new cities along the Don, and a new city 2 squares NW of Kerch. West of this line, with the exception of Minsk, the Soviets have managed to raze all cities not captured by the Germans during their initial turn.

By November, German forces had reached the vicinity of all the present front-line cities, an excellent performance by historical standards. I don't think that the Soviet scorched earth policy I used made it any easier for them. Because the no IRB rule severely limits the number of new units and city improvements that can be built it would have been impossible to generate enough reinforcements to hold any of the cities west of the December line . The limited funds that were available went towards air force bases (22), freighters, cruisers, 152 mm howies and a few T-34's. As much as possible, money was put aside for September when the KV-1 became available for RB. The Soviet line now looks secure for winter, with 32 KV-1's and 30 152 mm howies defending the cities.

The first 2 SC's were delivered to Baku and Grozny in November. German air and naval forces did not interfere with the freighter chain.

Stukas played their usual havoc with Soviet units in the open and defending cities. The "no disbanding units" rule leads to some pretty odd tactics. Got more Red Army units in a city than are needed to raze it? Move the excess (homed to the city) eastward and hope the city is captured (thereby wiping out the units without spawning new ones for the Germans) before the Germans catch up with the fugitives. The October attack on Leningrad was a dandy and only failed because the city was stuffed full of fortified naval infantry, NKVD, AA, T-34's and whatever other units could be scraped together.

I imagine you'll be glad to hear that it's been a real SOB to develop new (to me) approaches to get to the stage where I am reasonably comfortable with the Soviet situation. This one's going to be a real challenge.

[Ramsses]

Erm, where is the .bat file?
It is not in the zip file I downloaded...

[Colwyn]

You need RF1.4

Originally posted by Ramsses
Erm, where is the .bat file?
It is not in the zip file I downloaded...

RF 1.5 is a alterned set of files for RF1.4 you will need to download that to play RF1.4 ie it has the *.bat files.

RF1.4 is at

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2scenmod.shtml.

[Colwyn]

Has anyone had problems with the units limit? B/c the AI moves a bit quicker I was concerned that this might be reached a bit more easily in RF 1.5 I know Agricola did once anyone else Leonidas??

I'm also very keen to hear how peopel went in 42,43,44,45 and when they actuallty got to berline

[AGRICOLA]

Disregard.

[AGRICOLA]

Unhappy 152 mm Howie crews

Yesterday morning I noticed that in July, 1942 the 20+ howie crews in Kotelnikovo were ready to mutiny. The German guests to their carefully prepared welcoming party had apparently not shown up.

I have since discovered that the Germans can be persuaded to come to the party by changing "create Cossack cavalry" in Events3 to "create Motorcycle unit". Rumor has it that the Cossacks rode away at the end of Rules2 and are no longer present in Rules3.

I'll be reloading April, 1942 to resume the game.

[Colwyn]

yes your right there is a event to create the odd cosack in Siberia I'll make sure to fix this asap.

Does this cause the game to crash stop or can you play on?

[Colwyn]

Note I'm also working on a RF version for conquests, anyone want to give me a hand I am 3/4 of the way there and have a few tasks to issue if possible.

Conb?
Agricola?

[AGRICOLA]

Cossacks in Siberia

With the present version of Events3, when you re-load RF.sav after running Redfront.bat the following happens:

1. You get a message that "There was an error detected in "EVENTS.TXT" file. Please read the manual to find out how to debug this file.".
2. The events section is properly appended to the file loaded from RF.sav but only a part of the events actually take place.
3. In this instance, nothing interesting happens around Rostov . That is the most obvious missing event; I have no idea what others don't occur.
4. Otherwise the game plays normally so it took me until July, 1942 to realise that something might be wrong and to start backtracking. Unfortunately my manual is frozen stiff in Canada so I had to do the debugging by much trial and many errors.

Sorry, but I'll pass on conquests. I have a blood feud going with CIV III and all of its misbegotten spawn. Also, I'd like to take my time finishing RF 1.5 beta. So far it has been a lot of fun to find solutions to the many problems it poses.

[Colwyn]

If you replace references of cossack cavalrty in events3+ with the exact name of motorcyle's in units3+ then the error will go.

The events files are pretty much stock standard nothing really does happen around rostov until the events spawn units on the bridge to attack stalingrad.

The way units spawn are though events were they are created and moved forwards to german occupied towns or fortress's. So if you still hold rostov? then less will happen.

Has the stalingrad attack started yet?

Glad to have you working though this one Agricola, once you have finished and we've tidyied up any bugs we'll be able to release the offical 1.5!

[AGRICOLA]

Action around Rostov & Stalingrad

I had actually changed Events3 to Events3+, reloaded April 1942 and tested that the winter-summer transition worked correctly before my post about the unhappy howie crews.

The bridges and its defenders showed up on schedule. The southern, defended bridge and its defenders were immediately blown sky high by the howies massed in Kotelnikovo, at the cost of 9 lost howies. The crews considered it to be a fine way to welcome the Germans.

If I read your post correctly, then the forces designated to attack Stalingrad are indeed showing up every turn and, every turn, are blown to bits by one of the howies still in Kotelnikovo. A howie sorties from the city, fires one or two rounds and then returns to the city to drink vodka and boast for the next month. Also, every month, a Shturmovik squadron takes care of the Stuka and other units that appear in this area. The Stalingrad offensive has been a non-starter due to the defensive tactics employed by the Soviets.

The game is now in September and action is switching to the northern and southern sections of the map area.

I'll continue to keep you informed of significant details of the play by E-mail.

[Colwyn]

Excellent now we just need to see at what point you actually make it to Berlin! Think it will be before 45? In vanila RF it was 43/44 usually with a reasonable player.

[AGRICOLA]

Is this a glitch?

I'm not certain that the following is a problem but I would like to know for sure before proceeding with the beta test.

The description of the SOVIET ARMAMENT INDUSTRY wonder states that:

"This wonder simulates the "miraculous" rate of Soviet production by upgrading older units when better units become available. Major upgrades are T-34/76 to T-34/85, KV-1 heavy tank to JS-II heavy tank, Laborers to Labor brigades, La-5 fighters to Yak-9 fighters."

Most of the upgrades have occurred properly. However, if the description of the wonder is correct, then the La-5 fighters to Yak-9 fighters upgrade should probably have taken place but has not. The time line is as follows:

December 1942 - Discover Mobile Warfare III. Got the message that "T-34/76 upgraded to T-34/85" followed by the message that " --- discovered Mobile Warfare III".

January 1943 - Discovered Advanced Flight IV, the tech for Yak-9. Only got the " ------ discovered Advanced Flight IV" message. Yak-9 appears on the "can build" list but there is no upgrade of La-5's.

April 1943 - Winter-summer transition looks OK. Labor Brigades upgraded to mechanized Labor Brigades.

I have not actually played the following three turns. I ran them quickly by putting all Soviet units to sleep and using the cheat mode to deliver a couple Supply Convoys every turn. IIRC, in normal Civ 2 there has to be a tech advance to trigger an upgrade.

May 1943 - Discover Advanced Research
June 1943 - Discover Assault Artillery
July 1943 - Discover 122mm AP Tank Gun

There was still no fighter aircraft upgrade though the Germans had a marvelous time with the sleeping Soviet units.

BTW, this also seems to occur in the original Red Front. Fortunately, the absence of an upgrade has not affected play during the winter months but I'd like to know whether there should be an upgrade or just a change in the description of the wonder. If an upgrade is desired, I'll hexedit the La-5's.