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Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 10:12:10 AM   
Captain Cruft


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Ostfront re-implementation

I have decided to re-implement my Ostfront scenario. While the current version is fun it is lacking in numerous ways. Not the least of which is I always felt it was too small.

Ostfront II will feature:

300x300 map (10km per hex) - covering a much larger area including all of Finland and Black Sea.
Many more units, including naval but more generic (i.e less named units).
Simplified SFTypes, but retaining the focus on individual planes and AFVs.
Buildable/destructible rail, with separate types for both sides (as per reality with the different gauges).
More extensive but hopefully more understandable production and infrastructure system.
Whole war at one week per turn.

Don't expect anything soon.

< Message edited by Captain Cruft -- 9/9/2009 1:42:07 AM >
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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 2:14:36 PM   
Barthheart


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Ostfront re-implementation

...
Buildable/destructible rail, with separate types for both sides (as per reality with the different gauges).
...


I'll be really interested to see this. Can we know your secret?

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 2:47:22 PM   
Captain Cruft


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Here's a test scenario which illustrates it.

The only limitation is that the rail is not directional, but I think that's OK, at least for my purposes.

Attachment (1)

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 2:51:14 PM   
Captain Cruft


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You will need to make two graphics files ostfront\plain\rail.png and ostfront\plain\railnot.png in order to see it. As per this attachment.

Attachment (1)

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 3:17:00 PM   
Barthheart


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Cool. Thanks.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 3:25:33 PM   
03_walk_alot


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Captain

Am Interested in this! Have time on my hands if you need help testing anything
would be glad to help.

Giacomo

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 3:55:46 PM   
Captain Cruft


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It will be a long time before any testing takes place. You could play around with the existing scenario and let me know what you think though. The basics will be the same.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/19/2009 7:48:14 PM   
Jeffrey H.


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Ooh. Sounds impressive.




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RE: Ostfront II - 8/20/2009 1:32:09 AM   
Captain Cruft


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Map

I have done 10 columns of the base map in about one day. There are 300 to do, so that's at least a man-month to start with ...

A few things to note:-

Murmansk and Archangelsk are on the map. Arctic convoys won't be though.
Lend-lease will also come in from Persia (via Astrakhan) and the Far East (mechanism to be decided).

The top-left corner is Norway.
The bottom right-hand corner is Baku.

Gratuitous screenshot:-




Attachment (1)

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/20/2009 2:04:36 AM   
Bombur

 

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Great, I´m a volunteer for playtesting....

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/20/2009 10:19:41 AM   
Captain Cruft


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Jolly good.

I am interested in whether people think the term "Railhead" is confusing. Perhaps I should call these "Supply Depot" or something instead? Anyone who has played the scenario feel free to comment good or bad.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/20/2009 7:52:03 PM   
Jeffrey H.


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Jolly good.

I am interested in whether people think the term "Railhead" is confusing. Perhaps I should call these "Supply Depot" or something instead? Anyone who has played the scenario feel free to comment good or bad.



I never had any problem wit hthe term 'railhead'. IF you understand that the rail gauges were different and that in order for one country to use it's rolling stock transport capacity, they had to tear up the pther countires rail lines and reset the gauges, the phrase just fell into place.

Even if you consider a new rail line being layed, it's made in segments ahead of the existing rail line and the lead segment is called a railhead.

The fact that it's also a supply point is something a little more abstract. However playing the old board wargames makes the connection between the two intuitive.


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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 9:11:02 PM   
Grymme

 

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how are you making the different railroads. A possibility would be to make an turnchecked event that changes rulewar 32 (which type of road engineers build) every turn.

German turn - engineers build western railroad
Soviet turn - engineers build eastern railroad.

A similar event could be used to change the movement depending on whoose turn it is. On german turn german type railway is good. On soviet turn only soviet railway is good.

Just a suggestion.

Good luck. Ostrfront I is one of the most ambitious scenario atempts so far.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:04:43 PM   
Captain Cruft


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I did consider doing it that way before, but rejected it for reasons now forgotten. Possibly something to do with preventing rail from being built on any hex.

What I actually did was implement Rail as a LocType. This allows you to restrict it to a defined network of hexes with the appropriate LandscapeType. See the test scenario attached above.

Another screenshot from near Murmansk gives some idea what this rail network looks like. Note also the shallow water (light blue) which I may use with river patrol boats and the like, and the "minor roads" (the whitish lines). These form 99% of the roads in Russia, are unpaved and will be useless when the mud comes and not hugely rapid at any time.

Note: Urban hexes will have built-in rail capability. I didn't want to clutter the graphics up ...




Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Captain Cruft -- 8/21/2009 10:05:58 PM >

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:16:32 PM   
Captain Cruft


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Here's Oslo, for what it's worth.

The map is going to take absolutely ages.




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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:16:40 PM   
british exil


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Is a german HQ with train as their transport mode able to travel across the russian tracks or do they need to "purchase" new trains?
Perhaps hindering them to provide sufficient supply to the units moving ahead.

< Message edited by british exil -- 8/21/2009 10:27:22 PM >


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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:24:53 PM   
Captain Cruft


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HQs will not have trains as their transport mode. Rail movement is (mostly) just used for production and supply movement and transfers, not actual unit movement. Supply movement is quite limited off the rail lines. See the existing Ostfront scenario for how this works ...

The process of gauge conversion for each hex will be implemented as:-

1) Destroy Russian rail LocType
2) Build German rail LocType.

Or vice versa when the Ruskies are on the offensive later.

I am thinking of tweaking the parameters with a view to having a ballpark rate of conversion of one hex per rail line per turn.

Turns will now be 3 or 4 days each I have decided rather than one week. So there will be 400 odd turns in total.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:28:29 PM   
british exil


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phew. 400 turns! Killer scenario


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RE: Ostfront II - 8/21/2009 10:33:02 PM   
Captain Cruft


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Yep. Definitely not for the faint-hearted 

That's if I ever finish it ... LOL

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/22/2009 4:20:19 AM   
Jeffrey H.


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So, IIRC a typical supply situation would be city-->rail-->railhead/depot-->truck-->dump-->--truck-->units

Something like that ?



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RE: Ostfront II - 8/22/2009 3:13:56 PM   
Captain Cruft


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Supply distribution works exactly the same as normal, but with different movement costs. There is no limit to the number of HQs that can be chained together.

What you are "supposed" to do is use the railheads as storage depots, so as to remove the need for the combat HQs to carry stuff. This should allow for better management of the unit/HQ experience dilution issue.

Army Group or Front HQs do the actual distribution to the combat units, and these top-level HQs should simply be attached to the nearest railhead.

As I keep saying, the best way to get a grip on it is to play around with the existing scenario, paying close attention to how everything is linked up at the start.

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RE: Ostfront II - 8/24/2009 11:30:09 PM   
Captain Cruft


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I quite enjoy it, but making the map is going to take a very long time. It's 90,000 hexes in total.

Here is part of the Soviet-Finnish border in Karelia, showing the three different types of rail terrain. GE (black on blue), SO (red on yellow) & Broken (grey on white). Broken is what you need in order to build rail in a hex.




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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 8/24/2009 11:49:29 PM   
jjdenver

 

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Oh how exciting. :)

Looks great.

< Message edited by jjdenver -- 8/24/2009 11:51:01 PM >


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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 8/25/2009 11:58:05 PM   
Captain Cruft


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Map progress

I have now done Norway, Finland and Murmansk/Kola Peninsula plus a few other bits and bobs in about a week. Therefore I estimate that to complete the map (at the same rate, which is not guaranteed) will take about another two months.

There's not much more to show really, except that I discovered that Finnish rail is in fact the same gauge as Russian, so the hexes in Finland will in fact be SO Rail type not GE Rail. This will require a separate Finnish train type as distinct from generic German or Axis trains.

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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/2/2009 12:46:58 AM   
Captain Cruft


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The map gets very busy around Leningrad, as you can see from this screenshot. I think I will have to do a version without labels ...

There will be several variants of the scenario. Some I have thought of thus far are:

No Balkans campaign, with an early start in May
3 day turns
4 day turns

All time-based changes are easy to implement in the editor but do require separate scenarios rather than a simple scenario variant tick box.

I'm also thinking of having some "large" event type thingies in there. Like for example if the Germans can take Moscow before December then Japan attacks the Soviet Far East rather than doing Pearl Harbour. This would have the effect of a) reducing Soviet reinforcements and b) drastically reducing US Lend-Lease efforts.

Taking Moscow will not be a German win. I am thinking of making the line Archangelsk->Astrakhan a "major victory" and something like Leningrad->Moscow->Stalingrad a "minor victory". Or something ... VPs will not be used for this, but rather explicit checks on hex ownership. VPs will still figure though, as an influence on research and morale and stuff, as per Ostfront I.




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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/2/2009 12:55:53 AM   
Captain Cruft


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Evaporating Finns

Another thing I am going to do is prevent the Finns from proceeding beyond the historical frontier except under certain circumstances, like for example Moscow falling. This is what happened in reality, and it will be implemented using an event Exec which can "evaporate" all units of a designated People in a specified area.

Petrozavodsk in Soviet Karelia is the most important stop on the Murmansk rail line (it will warrant a Railhead) and if it were taken then no more Lend-Lease can get through from Murmansk. I suspect that the Finns would have no problem advancing to the place, but they won't be able to ...




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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/2/2009 9:41:53 PM   
Joshuatree

 

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A version without labels? Would it be possible to turn the labels on and off? Because it *does* give the map a more "historic" feel.
Anyway, it's already looking impressive.

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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/2/2009 11:02:30 PM   
jjdenver

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

I'm also thinking of having some "large" event type thingies in there. Like for example if the Germans can take Moscow before December then Japan attacks the Soviet Far East rather than doing Pearl Harbour. This would have the effect of a) reducing Soviet reinforcements and b) drastically reducing US Lend-Lease efforts.

Taking Moscow will not be a German win. I am thinking of making the line Archangelsk->Astrakhan a "major victory" and something like Leningrad->Moscow->Stalingrad a "minor victory". Or something ... VPs will not be used for this, but rather explicit checks on hex ownership. VPs will still figure though, as an influence on research and morale and stuff, as per Ostfront I.



Looks great so far. I have a couple comments about these notes:

1) I like the idea of spreading out production, in particular recruitment of infantry/militia across the USSR to give the USSR incentive to fight for every city. I'm not sure the VP's concept accomplishes it because as the Soviet player I will think: "vp's in 1941 are unimportant compared to my survival and I will probably crush Germany in '43 anyway if I do survive". It sounds like VP's will also figure into research which should help some.

2) One thing I really hope you can accomplish that GPW didn't accomplish is add some resilience to the Germans so that it's all or nothing in 1941 else they collapse and game ends in 1942. It would be great to figure out a way to let each country: USSR and Germany show their historical resilience. Germany was able to take a major defeat in winter of 41 and come out swinging in '42, then take a major defeat in winter of '42 and come out swinging in '43. In '44 if they hadn't gone for a Bulge in the west perhaps they could have done better in USSR as well. USSR had huge encirclement losses at Kiev, at Vyazma, and huge defeats and lost major cities but was always able to rely on vast reserves of manpower to the east and yet more production centers to the east to come back from what seemed like knockout situations.

3) I'm not sure that losing Moskva would have decreased lend lease or made the Japanese attack. I think it could be argued that lend lease might have even picked up out of western desperation to keep the USSR afloat. And the Japanese had their hands full by winter of '41 in China and fighting the U.S. I really doubt they'd want to commit to a war w/ the USSR. Also if you take the approach of piling more ill fortune on the USSR when Moskva falls what you are sort of doing is making an already imbalanced game (USSR is down Moskva production, recruitment, rail center, etc) into a more imbalanced game. Maybe if Moskva had fallen LL would have picked up and the Russians would have increased recruitment to the east in desperation. The Soviets always seemed to be able to call on further heroism when the hour was darkest. Witness Leningrad, Stalingrad, defense of Moskva by Zhukov after a huge defeat at Smolensk and then Vyazma. Recovery from a major defeat at Kharkov at the end of '42, etc, etc.

Just some thoughts. I'm really thankful you're doing this scenario - looks great. :)

< Message edited by jjdenver -- 9/2/2009 11:20:53 PM >


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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/2/2009 11:26:56 PM   
Captain Cruft


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joshua - You can only turn labels on or off in the editor, not in game. Unfortunately.

jj - Great thoughts and I thank you. Nothing is set in stone yet, as I am at this point only about 20% of the way through the map. I just start pondering a bit as I am filling in the hexes ...

What do you think about the Finnish thing? I have less doubts about that than the Japan idea, which could after all be a variant.

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RE: War in the East (Ostfront II) - 9/3/2009 12:22:07 AM   
jjdenver

 

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Ah, I agree that the Finns should be somehow discouraged from major offensives past their historical boundaries. Germany basically partnered w/ the USSR in 1939 and stood by while the Soviets pounded the Finns in the winter war. The Finns didn't love the Germans and afaik didn't have territorial ambitions in the USSR. They just wanted to be left alone. I doubt they would have gone much into the USSR even if Moskva had fallen.

I think making these things variants is a great way to approach it.

For example even the German economy retooling that was undertaken in 42 or 43 (I don't recall which) by I think Speer(?) could be an option.

The Germans could get a tech boost in late '42 when they had a bunch of tech advances, or in '44 when they developed jets. Some argue that if production of Me262's had been emphasized the Luftwaffe could have deployed thousands of them in '44 and prolonged the war significantly for example.j

The more variants you include the easier it is to balance out the game for players who've played it a few times and want to tilt it one way or the other. I like that Tom included 10% production boost as a variant in GPW. However I wish it went even further and allowed for example phase production boosts like
option 1: 10% boost in 42
option 2: 10% boost in 43
option 3: 10% boost in 44
etc

So that players can judge the balance through the war and increase production to get a more historical feeling situation later in the game perhaps?



< Message edited by jjdenver -- 9/3/2009 12:23:17 AM >


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