Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

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Erik2
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Erik2 »

uran21 wrote:Hi Erik,

When you made Norway (1940) map did you used Google map as template or you had some source from WW2 times or something else?
I can't remember with 100% certainty, but I may have gotten it from this excellent free site (University of Texas).
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
Erik2
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Erik2 »

uran21 wrote:.....

There are certain places with marked names but without settlement terrain, those are:
Elvenes near Narvik. Gjovik and Brandbu near Lillehammer. Kjevik near Kristiansand. Gol near Geilo. Airfield near Kristiansand has no name.

There are also places with flags but without name or settlement terrain. Some special purpose for those?

There is a rail going through tick forest near Kristiansand and Arendal but I checked this has no negative impact on actual transport so it is fine.

There is no rail connection between Stavanger and Kristiansand (Stavanger area has its own mini rail network). I wonder is this the way it's meant to be?

Rjukan has oil facility overlay which is weird for mountain village.

There is an airstrip located on the river hex which is not bad in general just unusual choice.

Also unusual choice is to have roads and rails going through airfields but considering narrow area near those maybe it is a necessity.
Thanks for the nice comments. Maybe it is about time I took another look at this old scenario.
A few quick answers.

Elvenes is the location for a possible German airstrip. No village/town there.

Gjøvik and Brandbu is simply missing their town/village terrains. Fixed.

Kjevik flag is removed. Kjevik airfield next to it has been named.

Gol was a Tropical Village. :D Fixed.

I'll remove all village/town flags that serve no special purpose to clean up the map.

Rail through difficult terrain like dense forest or jungle functions just fine.
I try to replace those terrain types with regular forest whenever there's a road going through. One of my pet-peeves in OOB.

Rjukan was the site for the heavy water production. See all those small, but very heavy water containers? :mrgreen:

There's one airstrip in the scenario that was actually on frozen water (Lesjaskog).

Yes, the map is cramped so I had to compromise a lot.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Edit: Sweden is scorched because Sweden was all black hexes in my original Weserübung scenario for The Operational Art of War.
Proper map-making from scratch is a lot of work.

Edit2: The missing rail between Stavanger and Kristiansand was not built yet.
uran21
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

Map source is great! I stumbeled upon it in the past but bookmarked it just in case :D
Erik2 wrote:Rjukan was the site for the heavy water production. See all those small, but very heavy water containers?
Ah, now it makes sense. It is actually nice detail for those hwo now the fact or something new to learn for those who ask.

Couple of more comments on map. I like capital letters used for OSLO but whole area around it looked like sensory overload during battle with hard to recognize planes, units an so on. There is scorched terrain with river and no-access flag near Mysen but during battle I found that hex switched to Norwegian side with artillery in it. Maybe due to artillery retreat or trigge,r don't know how exactly but it looks like this should not be happening.

Will give you more comments later.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

Occupy Trondheim and Vaernes AF objective has markers set on Trondheim and Narvik.

Occupy Kristiansand and Kjevik AF is secondary objective but hexes are marked with primary VP’s.

Marked mobilization centers are using flags for secondary VP’s but there are more “silver” flags out there.

Additional objectives were triggered but they all lacked image. Connect Oslo and Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim, Trondheim and Narvik. When I reached Bergen it fired as a new objective although at that point I already had connection between Oslo and unit that marched to Bergen. When I connected Oslo and Trondheim event popped up how new objective to connect Trondheim and Narvik is added (no image) although that event fired when my troops occupied Narvik.

At some point there were 3 events about reinforcements coming in Oslo all coming one after another. No image and no text only title.

When it comes to objective accomplishment markers my association goes like this:

OPEN - objective not yet achieved (not completed) but worth trying (not failed).
COMPLETED - objective achieved but its status is subject to change. Depending on circumstances, like owning a hex is not constant during battle so completing hex capture can revert to OPEN if hex is recaptured by enemy.
FAILED - not achieved objective and not worth trying because failed status cannot be reverted.

What I saw in Norway scenario is opposite to what I expect. Objectives were marked as open at the begging than at some point switched to failed except one. After completing objectives they reverted from failed to open again. I do not see any particular advantage of this way of markers management. It is confusing and not consistent. This department could see improvement in quality if markers would be used the way they were intended to.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

When it comes to supply in general. British islands do not have supply so AA is low on efficiency. Island with only airfields on it could easily be captured by paratroopers (I get crazy ideas sometimes).

After breaking connection with Tromso and the rest of Norway and capturing all main objectives except Bergen Norwegian army is under supplied and recovers only after couple of units get destroyed.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

When I play scenario for the first time I never peek at the editor first.

Haven’t played Norway till the end yet but halfway through.

Let’s take a look at Kriegsmarine in the scenario.

Ships have custom names. Nice!

I simply adore possibility in OOB to allow redeployment of auxiliary units.
If one wants to use historical positions for ships it can do it but if one wants to use different than historical positioning he is still free to do so. I used gamey approach in this one. It did occur to me that more one goes in questions of historical accuracies it needs to know precise details in order to appreciate them. I have read more than once about Norwegian campaign but could not reposition capital ships only on the basis of my recollection.
Blucher was sunk in Oslo bay, Lutzow got torpedoed on his way to Denmark. Hipper was off Trondheim coast but can’t remember 3 K positions. One of them was sunk at Bergen, finished off by bombers if I am not mistaken. In historically inspired scenarios it is about approximate feeling of historicity which is rather subjective. It is hard to know precise details unless book about the subject is read parallel to play.

Destroyers around Narvik were fixed in position but it is all fine with me not to depart too much from the setting. Narvik puzzle is crucial for this scenario.
Destroyers were spawned with reduced efficiency. It instantly reminded me on their lack of fuel when they reached Narvik bay. But than on the next turn they recovered to full efficiency. Not particularly useful in gameplay sense but it did reminded me on historical detail which gave some charm to situation. But not to babble about it that much it would be better to ask, what was the purpose of efficiency reduction? And do you feel it fulfilled its purpose the way it is?

Usefulness of cruisers and destroyers is undoubted but let’s take a look at other ships.
Patrol/torpedo boats should be useful in combat against their counterparts and in general used more for flavour and as nuisance near coast. But in US Pacific campaign I found out you could use them as swarms to absorb fire from bigger ships and indirectly protect your more valuable fleet. Here I discovered swarm of them is useful against coastal batteries. +1 attack and ability to approach to some coastal guns from more sea hexes (some guns are on islands) is more than useful. Torpedo boat is better at hitting coastal guns than gunboats. Support ships are different story. Their main purpose is to lay mines and repair ships and with ZERO resources one cannot do anything of two. I would suggest to add Kriegsmarine faction smaller amount of resources. Not enough to buy destroyer but enough to place couple of mines or to do partial repair on selected ship. No per turn RP but fixed amount.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

Narvik adventure… utterly failed. As we speak I am pushing fresh forces from Trondheim area to complete conquest of Norway. There is some mopping up to be done west of Trondheim as well.

Swedes refused to intern strugglers still bitter that Erik the Burner scorched their country. :evil:

So let’s take a look to refine my strategy in the future. There is fixed number of auxiliaries which is fine. One more deployment hex which I used on infantry unit. No much flexibility to depart from fixed setting at Narvik but considering this is only one spot out of many in the whole scenario it actually adds to variety and to the challenge.

Sending reinforcements my sea is not feasible. Too long to travel and to travel in hostile waters. Pushing force by land is desirable to make supply connection which is one of the objectives but that force cannot make on time to reinforce actual battles over there. Sending reinforcements by air is option worth testing. Since there is no airfield over there only paratroops can count. In second playthrough I would be looking to board paras as soon as they are done on the south and fly them to Narvik. There is also one other, gamey option. Not to spend all CP right away and make purchases at Narvik once some settlement is captured.

I have encountered desire not to allow purchases on certain points more than once so idea to have distinctive “purchase flags” looks attractive to me.

But there is another problem at Narvik. Narvik itself has no supply, town on the other side of bay does which makes capture of the whole bay essential if one wants to have independent land supply. But that source is so small (10 supply) that is not enough if deployed core unit has more than 2 supply expenditure. I was angry on myself for placing ordinary infantry with 3 supply expenditure but when trigger awarded me AA that dwindled my supply situation even more I blamed scenario designer for it.

As it stands now Narvik requires sea supply support and ships overthere stand no chance against Royal Navy. This brings me to only one conclusion and that is to use land and sea assets aggressively to push north toward Tromso. Casualties are to be expected but time is playing against us so it is imperative to hurry.
uran21
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

AA spawn is doubted. First player can purchase such unit if it feels need for it. Second in precarious supply baubles it has tendency to disrupt supply situation. I had this problem at Oslo and Narvik.

Coastal gun spawn is something I welcome but the way it is implemented is not the optimal one. This is one of those situations where I would like to see additional game UI feature called TIPS. Briefing is for immersion and some more important tactical warnings. It would be great if we would have tips section where scenario designer could include couple of lines on how to achieve something or simply have some warnings in it. The reason why I do not like coastal spawn implementation is because there is no info on it as a possibility, it happens anarchically and there is general feeling of lack of control or prediction where and when it could happen and what I need to do to make it happen.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

30+ turns into the game. All of Norway is secured except far north. If Royal Navy stays near Narvik to provide ground support I would not have any chances for victory. It decides to move south but prospect of victory does not feel deserved because it is an AI blunder that breaks suspension of disbelief and ruins immersion. Victory is not that near because path to Narvik is long and front is narrow. This creates something of an anti-climatic ending. I got lazy at that and haven’t sent enough artillery and infantry reserves to facilitate push north (long distance move notwithstanding).

Gamey tactics I am using is to disband previously purchased fighters to free up CPs for bombers. This can hurt RN passing through but it poses no threat to land operations anyway at this point.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

Battles at Narvik very much define the course of scenario flow. If it is set as secondary objective with time limit or alternatively if pop-up would ask you to end scenario with lost Narvik or to proceed to it once all other objectives were fulfilled and Narvik being in Allied hands it could make better dynamics in scenario. Even if it was lost it would provide some sense of accomplishment. The way it stands now I would rather terminate play and start all over again but won’t be doing that to test objective triggers at the end.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by uran21 »

Gamey tactics I used was to disband core units further south and buy brand new artillery at newly acquired settlement on the north. Carved my way to Narvik!
Turn 50 all objectives are met but they are all marked as OPEN and the game continues for 10 more turns until it reaches max turn number. Scenario rewarded me DRAW.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by ctskelly »

Just tried two of Erik's new Malaysia scenarios, and once again, he has shown his genius. Kota Bharu and Muar both show how you can beat an overwhelming superior force with strategic retreats and little bit of sneakiness. Like all the best OOB scenarios, you are not forced into one particular strategy (where the game setup has done all the thinking for you) and there are multiple ways you can foil the Japanese. These are as good or better than anything in Panzerkrieg. Good show!
Erik2
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Erik2 »

Thanks for the Malay scenarios comment.
I have several more that are almost finished.
These scenarios was originally created a couple of years back when I was thinking about a Burma campaign.
Maybe I'll create an alternate British one or a Japanese one.
Erik2
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Bulge scenarios updated

Post by Erik2 »

Reduced air components in all scenarios.
Added two new scenarios:
Manhay Crossroads
Mayhem on the Meuse

Links in first post.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Adebar »

Remarkable collection of very well done scenarios. Thanks for that!

I'll do a bug report - if necessary/if I'll find the time.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Cataphract88 »

Hi Erik, Thanks for the updates and the new scenarios. :D
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Erik2
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Erik2 »

Thanks
I needed something to do while waiting for the updated Sandstorm beta :wink:
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by krahardy »

Thanks for the great work - really enjoying your Kota Bharu scenario. It seems to best capture the tactical essence of the Malaysian campaign - no tanks, almost no supporting arms, inferior air, desperate rear guard. If you ever get bored enough to stitch together your own Burma campaign.... :o :wink:
Erik2
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Africa Orientale

Post by Erik2 »

I have added two mirror scenarios to the first post.
These cover the Battle for Italian East Africa, each have British or Italian AI.
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Re: Erik's Singleplayer scenarios

Post by Mascarenhas »

Hi Erik!

As usual, two fine scenarios, taking advanatge from the new Afrika units. But, at least with the version I´m trying, in the Italian AI scenario, the objectives cannot be displayed. Could you please take a look on it?

Best regards.
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