Red Front for CtP2 v0.1 - Playtesting

[Maquiladora]

Current status:

I've decided to try to get everything off the to-do list before another release. So anyone waiting for a new version (unlikely, I know ), it will be a while before I get those things done and release anything. Hopefully the next version will even be worthy of being called 1.0.

I'll leave the 0.1 download up, just be aware that it's far from finished, so you might want to wait for the next release, which is already quite a lot better.

It's still far from complete, but as I haven't had time to work on it for weeks I thought it would more use to let others try it.

You can download version 0.1 from HERE - 8.5MB.

[NOTE: This readme is incomplete but should contain all you need get started.]

Red Front CtP2 v0.1

========

INSTALLING THE SCENARIO:

1. install CtP2
2. install latest Apolyton Edition patch found in the CtP2 Source Code Project forum Playtest thread here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=172035
3. extract "RedFront" folder into scenarios folder

========

SETTING UP THE SCENARIO:

1. BEFORE starting CtP2, go to the Red Front scenario folder (by default "C:\Program Files\Activision\Call To Power 2\Scenarios\RedFront\") and double-click the file "redfront.bat".

2. Choose option 1 to copy all the files necessary for "Summer 1941".

You will be asked to do this again at regular intervals for each phase of the game.

========

RECOMMENDED SETTINGS:

Difficulty: The higher the difficulty the faster the AI will produce new units from cities. Units from events are unaffected, so the first 6-12 turns of the initial German blitzkrieg will be the same at any level.

Research rate is the same at all difficulty levels for the AI, but your research will be longer the higher the difficulty. You will collect less food the higher the difficulty too.

Advanced options:

- Show enemy moves: ON
- Enabled battleview: ON
- Debug slic events: OFF (for the moment this causes a LOT of debugging messages, so disable it if you want to play without these)
- Unit animation speed: 9
- Combat speed in battleview: 9 (you will be seeing a lot of battles)
- Mouse scroll delay: 0 (but this might be too fast if your PC is really fast, then I recommend using the arrow keys to scroll)
- Show national borders: OFF (they just get messy after lots of city capturing, if you need to check if you still own a pillbox just mouse over the terrain)
- Show civilization flags: ON

========

PLAYING TIPS:

- Check the Msg tab at the beginning of every turn!
- Set long paths for units far from immediate danger (by default press "m" when unit is selected to bring up path). It will remove a lot of clicking needed to move units every turn.
- Use shift/ctrl-click to select multiple cities in the "National Manager" when editing queues.
- You cannot enter a pillbox inside another civs border.
- Keep pillbox improvements (inside your borders) occupied by Infantry at all times.
- Look out for messages about partisan units and make sure to locate any (with the eyepoint on the message) at the beginning of your turn.
- Don't expect to defend every city in the beginning, you may waste valuable units trying to do so.
- Settle Refugees in cities where the extra population will be most useful. Likewise consider building refugees where the population might not be as useful.
- Industry is expensive to build but vital later in the game, so do all you can to protect your industry.
- Use slow terrain and barbed wire to slow German armoured units.

========

CREDITS:

Cpt. Nemo and Alex the Magnificent for the original Red Front. For other credits of the original RF, see the readme for the Civ2 version of RF.

Many of the units (basically all tanks, anti-tank, aircraft and artillery) are converted from the Blitzkrieg series of RTS games. Some other units were converted from Sudden Strike (Fortified Battery) and Hearts of Iron (Freighter, Cruiser).

The infantry are mostly from new civ3 units created at various forums. I'm afraid I no longer have the names of the creators of all the units, but if you notice any of your units please tell me so I can credit you.

========

In addition to all that, I didn't save it as "one civ only" yet as I was still using it for testing, so please only select to play as the Soviet's, otherwise bad things will happen.

Also don't forget to set "EnableLogs=Yes" in your \ctp2_program\ctp\userprofile.txt to generate a crash log, in case of a... crash.

--------

Some other random things I noticed before I uploaded that would help to know beforehand:

1. Oil refinery (2nd commerce button) can be built anywhere on plains - it's supposed to only be allowed on the oil good, doesn't work yet.

2. Settler settling code now working.

3. Don't threaten Finland for a cease fire, they will always accept. I hadn't figured out how to prevent this yet. You may get a message (after certain events occur) that they have become more receptive to peaceful diplomacy though.

4. naval infantry, nkvd trooper, refugee, and siberian regiment all do not have new sprites yet. I gave them original CtP2 sprites for the moment.

5. Industry (3rd mine button) can only be built on desert, grassland or plains.

and 6. Consider yourself a "tester" if you try it.

[Maquiladora]

I had someone ask me why they couldn't move their units on the first turn, sorry I should've mentioned this, but don't worry its intentional.

The game starts in June '41 which is when the Germans attack (on their turn), so all you can do on the first turn is change build queues, give paths, sell buildings, rush-buy etc. It will return to normal the next turn.

I had to do this otherwise it allowed the human to cheat a little before the German's attacked.

[EPW]

Re: Red Front for CtP2 v0.1 - Playtesting

Originally posted by Maquiladora
It's still far from complete, but as I haven't had time to work on it for weeks I thought it would more use to let others try it.

You can download it from HERE - 8.5MB.

The link doesn't work

[Maquiladora]

After all this time...

Hmm, no idea why it's not working, looks like a 'Poly thing. I'll inform the authorities.

[Gramphos]

Uploads are working again.

[Maquiladora]

Re: Red Front for CtP2 v0.1 - Playtesting

Originally posted by Maquiladora

2. IIRC the Refugee code (settling settlers in cities) has been disabled in the current Apolyton Edition playtest. There are two ways you can workaround it for now: You can either use the scenario editor to add a pop to the city and kill the settler yourself, or just disband the settler in the city to get the production.

It seems the settle code was reintroduced in the latest playtest (download from HERE) so you can ignore the above quote for the moment.

I haven't tested the scenario with the latest playtest yet though.

[Colwyn]

Xclt my fav scenario on CTP!

Well i always thought about doing a Redfront 1.5 for ctp as ive done them for civ2, tot, civ3 see below.

Civ2 MGE http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...t=redfront+1.5

CIV2 TOT http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showt...hreadid=172331

and Civ3 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=86040

i'm so going to have a good look at this, might even help u'd like some expert RF help (;

[Maquiladora]

Re: Xclt my fav scenario on CTP!

Originally posted by Colwyn

i'm so going to have a good look at this, might even help u'd like some expert RF help (;

Hi Colwyn,

here is the last (incomplete) to-do list I made:

... immediately group spawned units (couldn't get working in SLIC for some reason)

... more specific triggers, goals and timing of german operations

... don't allow human to threaten Finns into cease fire

... negative movement units go invisible (barbed wire SLIC)

.. units that need new sprites: naval infantry, nkvd trooper, refugee, siberian regiment

.. more diverse german unit building, especially newly-researched units (see RF_mod.slc)

.. balance unit costs and power

.. fix refinery on oil good only tile imp SLIC

.. air units sometimes run out of fuel (wait for fix at source?)

. great library, remove irrelevant stuff, finish everything else

. verify all sounds correct/add new sounds

. naval infantry only in coastal cities

. nkvd trooper only in cities with NKVD HQ

. give nkvd trooper and naval infantry more unique abilities?

there are a bunch of other things to do though you can pick any area to help in.

The priority is testing and tweaking German unit movement though.

[Colwyn]

dusted off ctp2 and am about to start working on this one

[Maquiladora]

Great, let me know what you think Colwyn.

I went over a few turns of this last week and was surprised how far east some of the German spawn points were. I always manage to hold Moscow before the first winter, but by the next summer I sometimes have no chance. Eventually I'd like to remove some or all of these spawned units, and keep each starting army moving from city to city.

The unit and building costs seemed high as well, I can't remember exactly why I did this. Perhaps because at lower prices almost everything is overpriced compared to the turns it takes for a T34, so the much higher costs increase build turn times, and encourage you to invest in more infantry and artillery combination's at first, and use barbed wire/pillbox's to hold key points. Then as you get more industry built it becomes more efficient to invest in more expensive but MUCH stronger units like tanks.

[Maquiladora]

Since the game seems to be quite difficult I've revised some costs.

Buildings I reduced back to their normal cost (as opposed to 12* the normal cost to fit the time index), so now you can actually afford to build them, and they are also less worth selling (which indirectly eliminates a lot of micromanagement too). I also significantly reduced rush buy costs for units and buildings, which makes gold a lot more useful. Although micromanagement is still useful, it's now not required to survive the initial wave, although it's still quite possible to lose if you defend the wrong areas.

Next I'll try to fix the refinery tile imp, and give it a full run through again to look for anything else important. If it goes well I'll upload a new version.

Random screenshot, recapturing Moscow in October '41:

[Maquiladora]

Is there any way to get a unit's remaining move points? I noticed even in Peter's(?) "save the planes" script he couldn't find a way.

Because when a unit's move points go negative the sprite disappears, so I only want to reduce it to 0 at most.

Alternatively fix the problem with the disappearing sprite at the source, but I don't know where to start with that, or even if it needs to fixed.

[Maquiladora]

0.2 is coming along, here are the changes so far:

version 0.2

fixed - refinery tile imp. now only buildable on plains or desert with oil.
fixed - refugees settling in a city now works again.
changed - building/wonder costs lowered, to make them easier to build and less worth selling.
changed - unit and building rush buy costs lowered, to make gold more useful.
changed - refinery tile imp graphic.
changed - updated readme.txt.
changed - removed terraforming.
changed - sea mine graphic.
changed - barbed wire tile imp now removes all resources (except river resources) from terrain.
changed - air units (lower fuel and movement) and finnish infantry (stronger) in winter.
changed - slowed down city growth a lot.
added - new UI graphic.
added - all tile imp icons and info in GL.
added - some unit icons.
added - a folder in \RedFront\docs with various info and charts on units.
added - naval base and nkvd hq buildings, which are required for naval inf. and nkvd trooper.
added - certain city buildings repair certain units fully in one turn.
	hospital=infantry, factory=land machines, air force base=air, naval base=sea.
	normal heal rate a turn is 2hp in a city/fort, 1hp outside.

===

to-do (in order of importance):

- fuel bar looks too long for one turn after change to winter, need to check this isn't causing other problems.
- fix sprites disappearing for units with negative movement (happens when units run out of moves on to barbed wire).
- vary build queues more for Soviet cities occupied by AI.
- add more specific goals for the AI based on current game state and/or real events.
- possibly change other unit stats for winter phase.
- add unit upgrades, perhaps.
- add more events the player can interact with. religion, starvation, gulags, possibly active generals.
- improve existing SLIC where possible, speed, readability etc.
- update all great library icons and info.
- check sounds, maybe add more.

I'll play through it again and see what else can be improved easily, then upload it.

[Maquiladora]

I've decided to try to get everything off the to-do list before another release. So anyone waiting for a new version (unlikely, I know ), it will be a while before I get those things done and release anything. Hopefully the next version will even be worthy of being called 1.0.

I'll leave the 0.1 download up, just be aware that it's far from finished, so you might want to wait for the next release, which is already quite a lot better.

[EPW]

It says there is a missing upgrade icon file when I try to start the scenario, and then the game crashes.