Bru's Scenarios

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bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

best75 wrote:20 turns in and the defense of fort shafter on the east is going well. In the north my units around schofield barracks and Wahiawa are nearly gone but they did their job delaying the Japanese. I must say the Japanese units are really aggressive. Good news is I just destroyed all Japanese supply ships. Now hopefully the tide will start to turn in my favor now they can't reinforce.
The tide should turn now that you have survived the initial onslaught. The hardest things about designing this scenario? 1) Getting lots of Japanese to move aggressively and purposely while at the same time keeping AI "thinking" to a minimum (and forget about ever directing an AI seaborne invasion to disembarkation in this game, BTW) and 2) Trying to balance the scenario so that if you don't play well (and follow orders!) you can lose but if you do, you should win.
- Bru
Erik2
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by Erik2 »

Bru

Have you tried increasing the aggression value for AI tasks?
The default value is 50.
I usually set it to 90 for Japanese formations.
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bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

Erik2 wrote:Bru

Have you tried increasing the aggression value for AI tasks?
The default value is 50.
I usually set it to 90 for Japanese formations.
Yes I have, thanks. I use 100.

You may not remember some advice that you tried to give me last year about making sure that the Japanese had adequate supply FROM THE START. I dismissed that because, if I remember correctly, I said that I wanted them to have only eight supply ships and that the Japanese pick up supply points easily on their way south.

The problem was, being under-supplied from the beginning meant that most Japanese units had severe loss of efficiency and, being constantly on the move, they never recovered it even when they did have adequate supply. This accounted for them moving sluggishly. I have corrected this problem in the latest version of Oahu Invasion.

I should have listened more carefully to your advice. :oops:
- Bru
best75
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by best75 »

Ah well I got a draw in this scenario. My counter attack was too slow that I was unable to take back all the secondary VP in time. The secondary VP I could not get was Kahuku. I think part of it was I forget engineers could build platoons bridges until midway in my counter attack. This meant the rivers really slowed me down Image
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

best75 wrote:Ah well I got a draw in this scenario. My counter attack was too slow that I was unable to take back all the secondary VP in time. The secondary VP I could not get was Kahuku. I think part of it was I forget engineers could build platoons bridges until midway in my counter attack. This meant the rivers really slowed me down.
Draw is good! To me, at least. :wink: It means the scenario is balanced. If you move quicker next time, you will beat it. Did you get the carriers at least?
- Bru
best75
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by best75 »

bru888 wrote:
best75 wrote:Ah well I got a draw in this scenario. My counter attack was too slow that I was unable to take back all the secondary VP in time. The secondary VP I could not get was Kahuku. I think part of it was I forget engineers could build platoons bridges until midway in my counter attack. This meant the rivers really slowed me down.
Draw is good! To me, at least. :wink: It means the scenario is balanced. If you move quicker next time, you will beat it. Did you get the carriers at least?
Yes, in fact I got all 6 carriers and the ships with them. My destroyers could not damaged the heavier Japanese ships with normal attack but torpedoes can and I just had such a numerical advantage that I was able to overwhelm them.
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

best75 wrote:Yes, in fact I got all 6 carriers and the ships with them. My destroyers could not damaged the heavier Japanese ships with normal attack but torpedoes can and I just had such a numerical advantage that I was able to overwhelm them.
YES! That's exactly as I intended [rubs hands in glee]. :) Well, I hope you enjoyed it even though you came out with a draw. Now, I am not expecting you to play Oahu Invasion again right away. The way I designed this scenario and The Aleutian Crisis is rather choreographed and therefore it will unfold pretty much the same way each time, depending on how well you play. A while back, though, somebody suggested doing a version of Oahu Invasion from the Japanese perspective; I may look into that in the future.
- Bru
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by best75 »

After playing Oahu Invasion I look forward to what you have in store for The Aleutian Crisis
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

Well, I'm getting close to finishing The Aleutian Crisis. Time for a promotional tease?

[The last time I did this, God or the Fates punished me by blowing up my scenario almost immediately. Only kind assistance from two ESDTs (Emergency Scenario Design Technicians) saved The Aleutian Crisis from the trash heap, for which I continue to be very grateful. Besides, any announcement at that point was way too premature because this scenario has required a lot more work.]

So, here's the promo and hopefully I am not tempting Fate once again:
Aleutian Preview 1.jpg
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Aleutian Preview 2.jpg
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- Bru
calmhatchery
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by calmhatchery »

we will play on Japanese or Us side? please answer
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

calmhatchery wrote:we will play on Japanese or Us side? please answer
U.S. against the Japanese and the . . . (I'm sure that you have guessed the rest already).
- Bru
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by calmhatchery »

yes thanks!!! by the way this is another very interesting theatre of war :) in this game :). Im waiting for the new campaign editor and than Im gonna to make some in China :)
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

These are the stakes for which you will be playing The Aleutian Crisis. Talk about pressure and incentives, eh? :roll:
Results.jpg
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- Bru
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

See if you can spot the correction that I subsequently made when I realized my error! Such is my commitment to product quality. :|
Results 2.jpg
Results 2.jpg (173.1 KiB) Viewed 3485 times
However, the real quality is in the gameplay, not the details, and as always when designing a scenario for human vs. AI, gameplay balance is the key. Other considerations are also important such as, is the scenario too short/long? Is it fun to play throughout the scenario or does it drag in spots like when units must be moved over long distances? Hopefully I will have found the right answers but you will be the judges.
- Bru
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

So what's holding the works up now with The Aleutian Crisis is what I consider to be a rookie mistake that I should have remembered from Oahu Invasion. Maybe this is common knowledge but I will record it here for posterity: ONE MUST NOT DESIGN POPUP MESSAGES AND DIALOGS WITH TURN START AS THE TRIGGER EVENT.

The reason is, popups work fine at Turn Start as long as the player does not check objectives at the beginning of the turn; that is, as long as the player does not click the question marks for objective explanations. When the player does that, apparently Turn Start is over at that point and Turn Start popups never appear.

All this time in designing, I have used #johnconnor and rapid turn advancement in testing my scenario. I have many popup messages and a couple of popup dialogs that the player must see in order to know what is going on and what to do. No popup can be overlooked. It was only when I sat down to test play the scenario from the beginning, live, that I clicked the objectives and discovered to my horror that the popups don't appear for Turn Start if one does so.

Now I am substituting other trigger events for Turn Start and, of course, whenever there is one change in an OOB scenario, it is likely to have a ripple effect down the line. So, that is what I am working on now.

Would you tell me again why I am doing all this? Would you tell me when I'm having fun? [I just answered the first question with the second one, in spite of everything. :wink: ]
- Bru
terminator
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by terminator »

bru888 wrote:So what's holding the works up now with The Aleutian Crisis is what I consider to be a rookie mistake that I should have remembered from Oahu Invasion. Maybe this is common knowledge but I will record it here for posterity: ONE MUST NOT DESIGN POPUP MESSAGES AND DIALOGS WITH TURN START AS THE TRIGGER EVENT.

The reason is, popups work fine at Turn Start as long as the player does not check objectives at the beginning of the turn; that is, as long as the player does not click the question marks for objective explanations. When the player does that, apparently Turn Start is over at that point and Turn Start popups never appear.
I have already pointed out : http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... ilit=event
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

terminator wrote:I have already pointed out : http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... ilit=event
Yes, exactly! As you said, "The problem is if you click on an objectif [objective] information (Ex: ? Capture all VPs) and then you click on the button CLOSE, the EVENT POPUP will not be dysplayed [displayed]."

It seems that Turn Start is ended by looking at the objectives, thus popup message triggers never activate (I did notice that other types of triggers will activate; just not popup messages and dialogs). It's a quirk that can be worked around; most popups are the result of actions like combat and move but I was telling a background story at the beginning of each turn, using Turn Start. No good. I'm working on it.
- Bru
terminator
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by terminator »

I have found two solutions : Trigger Event = Move or Combat Event.
Trigger Event = Any Event do not work (same problem as turn start)
Ex in one of my scenario :
Screenshot 346.jpg
Screenshot 346.jpg (229.17 KiB) Viewed 3445 times
In this scenario, the combat is immediatly. No conditions = Scenario start.
Move Event is generally more quickly as Combat Event.
If the Event is relative to Combat , Combat Event could be more appropriate.
bru888
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by bru888 »

That's what I am doing now. Thanks for the assistance. For popups, anything BUT Turn Start works and I am finding "Move" is best (unless it is a combat or capture VP event) because it is definite; the first time the player moves a unit, boom, POPUP! :)

Thanks for the advice about Any Event, too. That seems to be rather useless and, in fact, I remember reading something adherbal said about not using Any Event too often, if at all, because it slows down the AI "thinking" process.
- Bru
ctskelly
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Re: Bru's Scenarios

Post by ctskelly »

Hi Bru,

I haven't played the Oahu update but in the first version it was quite easy to win by falling back and sending units up the flanks and cutting the main Japanese army off from supply. They did not leave any troops in the north to protect their supply lines.
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