Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

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Erik2
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Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by Erik2 »

Inspired by Bru's Arracourt, here's another single player late west front scenario.
This covers the initial phase of the battle of the Bulge. You are in command of the German forces.
Please report any issues in this thread.
If you wonder why some of the German units are core units, I'm planning a Wacht Am Rhein campaign...

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is that all these scenarios are based on the excellent Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge.
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Re: Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by bru888 »

I will try my hand at this if you don't mind.
- Bru
Erik2
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Re: Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by Erik2 »

Please, be my guest.
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

Okay, I'm suspicious. It's much too quiet...

I stupidly thought the Flak guns were to protect the airstrip so I held them back. I learned better when the U.S. air force showed up and did what they are supposed to do! Now my Flak guns are "rushing" to the front. :roll:

I have a bit of confusion over the bridge building (what a great idea for an objective, by the way). Dasburg objective points to these two hexes:
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But there is a Dasburg Crossing, so I built there first. I think that is what you meant us to do but I am not sure because when I built a bridge in Dasburg itself, the objective was achieved. I am not sure whether I got this objective because of that bridge or both bridges:
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It was the same situation earlier at U-bach and U-bach Crossing; I built at the crossing first, then in town, and I don't know if one or two bridges were required because again the one arrow seems to be pointing to nowhere:
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Capture765.jpg
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I'm up to Turn 11 now. I am enjoying this one so far but I also have the feeling of "waiting for the other shoe to fall" (waiting for something bad to happen). More later tonight or tomorrow...
- Bru
Erik2
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Race For Bastogne

Post by Erik2 »

There are two bridge building objectives at each site. I'll add some more info in the objective boxes.
bru888
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

Erik2 wrote:There are two bridge building objectives at each site. I'll add some more info in the objective boxes.
Knowing that, then I think the answer is that the second arrow for each objective just needs to be moved to each crossing.

By the way, returning your favor, you too have one of those "bridge is out" situations here:
Capture767.jpg
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- Bru
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

Okay, this was fun. How is it possible not to have fun playing OOB as interpreted by Mr. Erik? :wink:

The scenario did seem to take a while to get going though, so to speak. For the first half, much of it was just moving units from one turn to the next.

I think part of the reason for that was maybe you have just a bit too many German units in the scenario, especially slow ones like artillery and especially artillery units being towed by that super-slow SdKfz 7 vehicle. With the bridge-building and the winding around through forests, the artillery units block traffic and bog down progress.

Now, when I say "too many German units," I mean that at the end of the scenario, I had a horde compared to what I had faced in American opposition throughout and at the end. So what I am saying is, if you were to take out a few of the slow-moving artillery units, the pace may pick up a bit.

That said, however, I did just barely eke out a minor victory but I attribute that to my own plodding, cautious style of play as well. By the way, it's up to you of course, but perhaps this should say "you have managed a minor victory" instead of "a draw" because I did complete the primary objective (or so I thought):
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Screenshot 4.jpg
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So again, good fun as you always deliver. It just seemed to drag a bit in the early going. Your call, but I would take out some German artillery so that their forces might move a bit faster and balance that with some additional American units to offer stiffer resistance. I think the resources are fine and the timing is about right as to the number of turns. Here is my replay if you are interested:
Race to Bastogne Replay.zip
(15.37 KiB) Downloaded 117 times
- Bru
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Re: Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by Alan Sharif »

Just downloaded. Thanks for your work on this, and for sharing.
Erik2
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Race For Bastogne

Post by Erik2 »

Bru

Thanks for reporting back.
I already removed about 7-8 artillery battalions :D And that does not include static artillery not included in the first place.
But I could take out a couple more of the aux units. We'll see.

Note that this scenario uses mud, so that means this will be no blitz-krieg offensive.
The transports are historical and I'd like to keep them.

I never wuite understood the conditions for victory levels in the game. Sometimes I'm not getting the results I'd expect.
Maybe there's a reason most official scenarios just differs between victory and defeat...
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Race For Bastogne

Post by Horst »

Outcomes
========
Major Defeat (0): NOT all primary objectives met + NOT all secondary objectives met + hostile alliance has achieved all primary objectives
Defeat (1): NOT all primary objectives met + ALL secondary objectives met + hostile alliance has achieved all primary objectives
Draw (2): turn limit reaches + no one has met all primary objectives
Victory (3): ALL primary objectives met + NOT all secondary objectives met
Major Victory (4): ALL primary objectives met + ALL secondary objectives met
Erik2
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Race For Bastogne

Post by Erik2 »

Thanks, Horst

There are no AI objectives set up in this scenario.
Do you think I need to do this to get proper endings?
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Race For Bastogne

Post by Horst »

I'm still in the GGC-SeaLion, so no idea about this scenario here.

It's a lot of work with different event pictures, texts and objectives to get all different outcomes set properly. I bet most players are only interested in minor/major victories, anything else is a failure.
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Re: Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by bru888 »

Erik, I will take a forensic look tonight if you wish. (US EDT)
- Bru
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

So, I noticed two things with your primary objective trigger, one minor and one significant.

Minor: This trigger needs to fire only once. I don't think "-1" affects anything, as it only has to activate once, but I'm not sure about that. "1" might be better just in case:
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Significant: This is your trouble. See above where I had taken 10 primary VP's but was not awarded the objective? It's because you have this set for Capture VP Event AND one of the conditions is Scenario Turn Limit. Unless I were to capture my last primary VP at the very end of the scenario, this trigger will not fire even if I have already taken 10 VP's because it is waiting until the scenario ends and it must end with a VP capture which is not likely. Better, perhaps, to set Check Turn to >1 for the German side (or better yet, leave Check Turn out altogether because I don't think you need it here):
Capture772.jpg
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- Bru
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

Here are a couple more things. [See how I un-win friends and influence people the wrong way? :( ]

First, this explains my confusion over the "Victory" message above. I thought I had a Minor Victory because I did take the 10 VP's. But in fact, due to the trigger error that I showed you above, I had NOT officially completed the primary objective. So what I had was a Draw and the phrase "you have managed a draw" was in fact correct. I believe you want the popup to be labeled "Draw" in this case, however:
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Second, as Horst pointed out, a prime ingredient in a human player's Major or Minor Defeat is "hostile alliance has achieved all primary objectives." Your hostile alliance, the U.S./AI, has no primary objective, I see. So, when I "failed" my primary objective and did not complete my secondary objectives, I should have been defeated but instead the result was a Draw because the AI has no objective to win.

I remember a while back you asked adherbal a question about this and he said what is needed is another trigger, in this case a trigger set for Turn Start and Check Turn / Scenario Turn Limit, which if the human player has NOT taken 10 VP's by that time, fails his primary objective and at the same time completes the U.S./AI primary objective. That will make for a human defeat for sure. The U.S. / AI objective does not need to be elaborate; it could be as simple as "U.S. wins" without any description. Just something for the AI to complete and win so that the human player loses when he fails to complete his objectives.
- Bru
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Race For Bastogne

Post by GabeKnight »

bru888 wrote:Significant: This is your trouble. See above where I had taken 10 primary VP's but was not awarded the objective? It's because you have this set for Capture VP Event AND one of the conditions is Scenario Turn Limit. Unless I were to capture my last primary VP at the very end of the scenario, this trigger will not fire even if I have already taken 10 VP's because it is waiting until the scenario ends and it must end with a VP capture which is not likely. Better, perhaps, to set Check Turn to >1 for the German side (or better yet, leave Check Turn out altogether because I don't think you need it here)
The "check turn / scenario turn limit" setting WORKS correctly, if the trigger event is "turn start". You don't need it for the human player's WIN condition, only for the fail.
Screenshot 202.jpg
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Otherwise I concur with everything else Bruce said (concerning the trigger settings, haven't played the scenario yet)
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

GabeKnight wrote:The "check turn / scenario turn limit" setting WORKS correctly, if the trigger event is "turn start". You don't need it for the human player's WIN condition, only for the fail.
Gabe, you are right and here is why I think so. I was coming back here to comment that perhaps Erik would want his only primary objective to be Turn Start and Scenario Turn Limit in which case he would just change the trigger event from Capture VP to Turn Start.

The reason is, two of his secondary objectives are physically beyond the primary objective in this scenario. "Secure exits on the west map edge" is probably the last thing the player will get to, and "Secure the area around Bastogne" includes one last pesky point beyond Bastogne, Assenois (which I missed). So Erik will probably want to give the player the full 30 turns to get these secondary objectives and go for a Major Victory (primary + secondary objectives) even after the 10 primary VP's have been taken.

For this reason, the primary objective should be evaluated at Turn Start / Scenario Turn Limit instead of at Capture VP so that the scenario does not immediately end when the 10th VP is taken. He still needs a U.S. / AI primary objective for the AI to win or lose, though.
- Bru
Erik2
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Re: Erik's Battle of the Bulge Series

Post by Erik2 »

Thanks for the forensic details, very helpful CSI Bru.
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Race For Bastogne

Post by GabeKnight »

bru888 wrote:The reason is, two of his secondary objectives are physically beyond the primary objective in this scenario. "Secure exits on the west map edge" is probably the last thing the player will get to, and "Secure the area around Bastogne" includes one last pesky point beyond Bastogne, Assenois (which I missed). So Erik will probably want to give the player the full 30 turns to get these secondary objectives and go for a Major Victory (primary + secondary objectives) even after the 10 primary VP's have been taken.

For this reason, the primary objective should be evaluated at Turn Start / Scenario Turn Limit instead of at Capture VP so that the scenario does not immediately end when the 10th VP is taken.
Oh yeah, see it now in the screenshots. It's always better to play the scenario first and comment later... :wink:

But maybe in this case, meaning that the sec. obj. completion's only achievable AFTER all prim. obj. are already completed, it would've been better to either remove them or make them prim. obj. instead. Makes no sense to make the player wait all the 30 turns. What if I'd completed ALL prim. and sec. obj. by turn 25? I'd still have to wait for "scenario end", right?
bru888
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Race For Bastogne

Post by bru888 »

Gabe, designer's choice. I often run into this kind of thing myself. Yes, if you achieve the primary objective and secondary objectives too soon in some scenarios, it's a drag to wait until scenario end to win. But in this case, Erik has it pretty well timed so that by the time you get to Bastogne, it's getting near to the end. I think he can leave it the way he has it (just making the one change to the primary objective Trigger Event to Turn Start) because of that reason. This way, the player can still get to those secondary objectives if he has time.

Erik, it was my pleasure.
- Bru
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