RED FRONT ROCKS

[Michael Daumen]

although I question why the fascists need to move first if the computer is playing them. after all the trouble nemo went to getting them to act, well, like fascists, he could have saved programming/playtesting time, event space, and MY time watching the first turn over and over again by having them be where he wanted them to be at the end of June.

A lot of the good Soviet units have already moved during the first turn. I seem to spend a lot of time buying stuff the first turn as well.

------------------
Michael Daumen

"the future is not yet"

[Captain Nemo]

A good point, however I really wanted the Germans to start where they were on the 22nd of June 1941 before Barbarossa began (Historic accuracy?) The Soviets only started reacting after the first 8 days when the Germans were already deep inside Russia...so they really shouldn't move until July. They were caught by surprise and totally unprepared for the attack (Though Richard Sorge had given them the exact date of the invasion!).
The first turn ends up being a disheartening experience for the Soviet player (As will be every turn until December 1941!) But a lot of decisions made during the summer of 1941 are critical to the later play. (Like saving critical units for the defense of Moscow/Leningrad and scheduling production for the later years).

[techumseh]

Congratulations to Captain Nemo on what looks, after three turns of play, to be one of the best scenarios ever done. Well done!

[Civfan]

WOW.... only one word can describe this scenario.. Perfection.... This is I believe one of they best out there..... After that first Turn which took close to 15 minutes, it looks good.... Not a huge fan of ww2 scenarios, but the units, terrian and the use of multiple and seasonal events and terrian are good.......... A great scenario indeed........

.......Civfan

[DarthVeda]

This is why I pretty much dropped my scenario project. Red Front is so perfect it just puts me to shame

Now if only I can figure out how to get the damned @LEADER2 to work in ToT...

[Captain Nemo]

Who has some feedback about the gameplay?
Anybody still alive by the winter of 1942-43?
I have played the game multiple times and I know how to survive the initial onslaught but I don't know whether someone not familiar with the scenario would do.
Is it too difficult? Too easy? Has anyone found a problem or error? Any suggestions?

Here is one proposal from Alex and me:
The Soviet Guard regiments were only formed late in 1941 from troops that had fared well during the summer. How about two units both called "Red Army", same graphic, same statistics undistinguishable to the Human player, only the "regular" type can be built. The "future" Red Guards are mixed in with the regular Red Army units in Western Ukraine/Baltics/Crimea etc... When the winter rolls around all survivors from that group are promoted to "Red Guards" in the new rules/units file and also become available in the build menu.
This would add a little twist in the beginning of the first winter and create an incentive for the human player to try to save as many Red Army units as possible.

[techumseh]

Nemo, I'm to January of '41. The Germans are at the gates of Leningrad and Moscow. Where are the Siberian reinforcements for my counter-offensive? I sure need them! There were at least 7 new armies raised for the Moscow counterattack by the end of November. The Soviets also made use of significant numbers of paratroops in their first winter offensive.

I suggest winter begin in November instead of December. The mud was even more of an obstacle than snow.

How did you get the "moveunit" event to work? I've always believed that it didn't.

I think the Guards (not "Red Guards") unit idea is very good, as long as new guard units can be constructed after December too.
The trend during the war was for a larger percent of the Soviet forces (including cavalry, tank and air force units) to be given "guard" status.

[Aeneas of Ilium]

I loved it too. I've gotten to about Winter '43, and the Germans are still going. I really hope there's something to make it easier for the Russians later, or I'm going to be crushed. Which is a great feeling after the normal game

[techumseh]

I'm into May '42 now. The Siberian reinforcements should arrive in Nov and Dec '41. The Soviets should be taking the offensive during the first winter, but I was only able to launch local counter attacks, mainly with the partisans. I think the ebb and flow of the campaign would be better simulated if the reinforcements came earlier, as they did historicaly.

Now it's summer of '42 and the German drive on Stalingrad. More reports from the front later.

[Kull]

Damn you Nemo!

I had lots of plans for this weekend, and Red Front put them on the back-burner! WOW, what a scenario! The unit graphics are simply gorgeous. When the first winter hit, I spent at least 30 minutes just marveling at all the changes. My compliments to Alex. He has REALLY outdone himself this time!

The German offensive is outstanding. By the first snow (I kept praying for it to arrive early!), I was backed up to most of the historical stopping points. Still had a few forward outposts, but only because the Germans were delayed by a serious scorched earth policy.

And I must have a little Stalin in me, cause he would have been proud of my inhumane treatment of the refugees. Tank bait, one and all. If only i'd known they turn into useful laborers! Well, it's summer again, and God only knows how I'll make it to next winter!

Suggestion: In the Readme, you need to HEAVILY emphasize that almost every unit has changed funtionality come winter time. My pet peeve was the PE-2 Bomber. It's movement changes from two turns to one turn! I had 3 drop like rocks when I left them sitting over some advanced positions. Argh!

That said, it's clearly one of the best scenarios ever. Congratulations!

[Captain Nemo]

Great reports!

It looks like the Germans are doing what they are supposed to... Regarding the reinforcements for the winter of 1941-42, I thought that they would come from 2 sources, the Siberian regiments arriving in the East AND the human player starting to get his first load of T-34's from his own effort in building up the Ural region. If that second part is ignored the human player will only be able to do a little counter-attacking. I originally had the Siberian arriving in the first turn of winter but with my knowledge of playing the game I was able to drive far into German held positions the first winter which is not historical. (I got as far as Minsk and Kiev).
I will move up the Siberian troops arrival one month and give them a T-34/turn also.

Regarding the tide turning it is mostly the human players doing, ie building up the Ural region, building all the wonders, and getting the new tougher units. The Lend-Lease program is excellent help if you can get the ships through. I just built 2 wonders and 2 ammo-plants from scratch in one turn with Supply convoys (Winter 1942-43). Some wonders are fantastic help (Convoys, Zhukov, Tankograd and Labor Front)
and will cause the Soviet economy to go into overdrive (This is historical). Also in 1943-1945 I stop helping the Germans via event files.
Without help the AI is easy bait for the human player!
The Red Army > Guards switch will definitely be in the next version...That should also give the Soviets a boost in the first winter month...

Which technology route did each of you follow?

What did the Germans go for? My current game they went whacky on got FW-190's before anything else... By winter 1942-43 they stll don't have Einsatz Kommando's or extra SS-regiments...

Did anyone see the Germans use the siege mortars on Leningrad or Sevastopol? I have had a heck of a time with that unit...The AI simply refuses to use it despite fantastic stats.

Continued good luck, Komrades...

[Captain Nemo]

Techumseh:

The MoveUnit command is very fussy and I don't believe I completely mastered it but here are some tricks:

1. First the area selection square needs to be upperleft>upperright>lowerright>lowerleft otherwise, no luck.

2. If the route to the target location passes "through" an enemy city the command appears to be "redirected" to that city.

3. Units that are entrenched or already going somewhere won't be "redirected" so if for example you have this command: 10,20,40,20,40,30,10,30 -> 35,25
followed by:
30,20,40,20,40,30,30,30 -> 45,25
which would progressively advances units towards the right of the map, all the units end up fortified in 35,25 and the second command never gets them out of there. This is because the first command square includes its own destination location so the units at 35,25 are told each turn, before the second command is issued, to goto 35,25.

4. The repeated move commands (each turn, based on a tech advance) continues to "catch" units as they become un-entrenched or reach their final destination so it's more effective than a "one-shot" move command.

5. By using tech flags like "Operation Blau" to trigger the movements you can be creative for example moving reinforcements up to a start city over several turns with a genral move command then triggering a new move of all those units by giving a technology.

But, there is still a whole lot of weird stuff going on with the moves and the AI does issue it's own move command too. So the event file moves are only setting some "general" guidelines for movement.

Watch out for move and create commands with odd-even locations coordinates...I had a few of them (Of course odd-even location coordinates don't exist on the Civ2 map) and the units move into "The Twilight Zone" another dimension where they can't be seen but they can attack and do exert zones of control. They can capture your cities in the other dimension without killing your units and you end up with "dual possession" of the city! Very weird results!

[techumseh]

My experience was the opposite, I killed the mortars with naval units before they could get to Sevastapol, but at Leningrad they attacked repeatedly, retreating before I could get them.

I'm now at July '43, still losing ground. I lost both Leningrad and Stalingrad in summer '42. I attempted a counter attack at Stalingrad, but couldn't build up my forces enough during the winter. I attacked in the spring but was completely routed by an immediate German counter offensive.

Is there some compromise possible on the railways? The strategic movement is too slow. If the roads are intended to represent railways, then a higher road movement rate is suitable. Railways were usable in mud and winter conditions also. Perhaps they should retain some movement advantage during winter turns.

Of all the elements of this superb game, the one which is most frustrating is the Murmansk convoys. It is impossible to adequately protect a convoy since U-boats are re-created in squares which were just cleared by destroyers. And since one U-boat can kill the strongest escort vessel (cruiser), the entire convoy is wiped out. Historicaly, this only happened once, to convoy PQ-17.

I have a couple of suggestions. If destroyers could be made to withstand at least one attack from a U-boat, then all escort vessels would have to be attacked more than once for the convoy to be destroyed. It would be similar to the use of several AEGIS crusers to defend a fleet against cruise missiles in a regular game.

I don't think you'll like the second one, but here goes. Would it be possible to put some terrain feature like fortifications or airbases on the sea squares along the convoy route? That way naval units would be sunk one at a time, instead of all at once. Just a thought!

Back to the game!

[Overdrive]

I just spend the whole weekend on Red Front and reached Summer 44! The following game was played on emperor mode:
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STAVKA Report July 31st 44

NORTH FRONT:

The Finns are broken and retreating. The liberation of Viipuri and other cities showed the last of the finnish fighting spirit. The Red Army stands in front of Helsinki.

A counter-offensive directed against Talinn from Leningrad Front hit heaviest resistance, namely the famed SS Tigers. The same fate hit the pincer movement out of Velikye L. towards Riga. Still the pressure is definetly off Leningrad, same for Kholm/Demyansk Area.

CENTRE FRONT:

A mighty offensive liberated the towns of Vitebsk and Smolensk while only rubble is left of Tula, which changed hands numerous times over the past 3 years. Moscow isn't threatened anymore and becomes now the new jump off point for my future strikes into German Territiory, thanks to the great road network out of the capital towards Demyansk and Vitebsk-Next stop Minsk.

SOUTH FRONT:

Voronezh isn't threatened anymore, thanks to the clean-up between Don and Upper Volga. Also Rostov fell at the beginning of the Summer. Red Army inverted the roles on the Kerch Peninsula and are pushing out the fascist forces.

The hated ennemy is definetly stopped-and running in many areas!

Congratulations again, I was amazed by the accuracy of what happened during the scenario:
-the initial pincer movements towards Minsk and Smolensk by Army Group Centre under von Bock, the massive attack into the Volga Bassin and Stalingrad
-the siege weapons were put into and out of action in front of Sebastopol, but never crossed the Narva/Luga/Novgorod Line around Leningrad (none of these towns were ever taken)
By the way: Leningrad never came under siege, I managed to keep Bryansk/Kursk till late 43, Tula became another Stalingrad, Stalingrad was under constant assault from 41 till summer 44 and some SS Panzer Divisions managed to cross the Volga towards Kuybyshev(?). I nearly managed to encircle whole army Group Centre (Minsk-Vitebisk-Smolensk) in early Summer 42.
A few ideas:
-I was able to build JS way to early (winter 43-44) and I had put it off for quite a while
-make mine fields faster to construct (i was never able to use it on tactical level, even much less on strategical)
-create event that transforms killed Red Guards into Shock Regts.????

Gorgeous Units!


[This message has been edited by Overdrive (edited November 22, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Overdrive (edited November 22, 1999).]

[Kull]

One possible solution to the logistical nightmare of moving troops from the far east up to the Moscow area: Put in more Airports. At least then you can use airlift to move the troops up to the Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad line. It may not be completely historical, but it would simulate a low capacity railroad.

Game Hint: You can do airlifts from the UK to Murmansk...I haven't lost one yet!