WIP campaign 29th Infantry division (testers appreciated)

[Ts4EVER]

DOWNLOAD OF LATEST VERSION ON PAGE 4

Hi
I am currently working on a campaign about the US 29th Infantry. This is my first campaign, so I'm still kind of learning the ropes. If anyone is interested, you may play the first 8 scenarios of the campaignm covering the initial fighting on omaha beach, the assault on St. Lo and the capture of Vire. Scenarios about the battle for Brest and the Siegfried line campaign will be added in the future.
If you play it, it would be nice to get some feedback on the scenarios, especially on time constraints (too much, too little?) and the effect of repair points. Generally speaking, I want the player to operate with an understrenght force for much of the first scenarios, but I don't want the repair points to be so limited as to lead the player into a dead end, where his force is completely pinned at the start of a scenario.
Final victory conditions are not yet set.
The force is 2nd Infantry bataillon, 116th regiment.
The first scenario is just for organisation, I will probably replace it with something nicer later, like embarkation in England or something. ATM it's a placeholder.

[Cameronius]

I'll give it a go.

[Cameronius]

Looks like your zip is missing the ucamp050 files. data and txt.:confused:. You may have missed putting them into your zip maker.

[Ts4EVER]

I have, sorry.
Here is the new zip with the missing files.

[Ts4EVER]

So has anybody tried it?

[Double_Deuce]

So has anybody tried it?Let me get my copies patched in the next few days and I will give it a run through.

[Cameronius]

So has anybody tried it?

I am about half way through the first scenario and am currently bogged down by real life:doh:, hope to get back to it soon.

[phil74501]

I came across a dvd on netflix about the 29th division, 116th regiment. Not sure what the battalion was. It was called "Bedford: The Town They Left Behind." If you're on netflix look it up, it was good.

[Double_Deuce]

Made it to the beach, no problems. Once on the beach started taking heavy casualties. Naval support has been woefully inadequate so far however, I have managed to push some depleted Rifle and Engineer Squads past the obstacles and up to the front line of enemy trenches.

Its gonna be a long morning for 2/116. :(

[Ts4EVER]

Everything going according to plan then.

[ich]

Tell me please does it part of multiplayer campaign?

[Ts4EVER]

No it's a single player campaign.

[m10bob]

My dad's experience on June 6th 1944

http://29infantrydivision.org/WWII-Stories/Clark_Robert_F.htm

[Ts4EVER]

Hi!
This is the first finished version of my 29th Infantry campaign. Feedback appreciated.
It comes with 14 scenarios + 1 intro scenario, spanning from June to December 1944. All maps are based on actual locations.

Difficulty moderate.

[DRG]

This sounds interesting and although I simply do not have the time to play it at this time I will be watching for feedback.

Thanks.

Don

[gila]

Hi!
This is the first finished version of my 29th Infantry campaign. Feedback appreciated.
It comes with 14 scenarios + 1 intro scenario, spanning from June to December 1944. All maps are based on actual locations.

Difficulty moderate.

I am seriously interested.

Could you please make it in regular zipped files?:)

[Ts4EVER]

Sure thing.

[Ts4EVER]

So did anyone try it out? Any feedback on the first scenarios?

[Double_Deuce]

I never really got off the beach but them I'm really rusty with WinSP these days. I planned to restart it and see if I could do better this time around and then proceed past the 1st scenario. Unfortunately, I am busy with work and summer stuff these days.

[Ts4EVER]

Anybody else who can't get past the first scenario? Maybe I made it too hard.

[gila]

have not had time to play this yet,but looks looks like heavy naval bombard in store, and no allied air cover:confused::confused:

[Ts4EVER]

I don't think the Allies had direct air support on Omaha beach.

[gila]

I don't think the Allies had direct air support on Omaha beach.

Hmm,, all those landing craft and ships would've been sitting ducks;)

[Cameronius]

I have only played the first scenario. I think it is too hard. My core was decimated and I did not make any foolish mistakes. Not the best way to start a campaign. Try adding some aux units. Rangers and naval EOD teams to use as canon fodder. More dd tanks availble sooner and some rocket launching barges with smoke. This should make a more playable beach assault.
Cheers,
Cam

[Ts4EVER]

I don't think the Allies had direct air support on Omaha beach.

Hmm,, all those landing craft and ships would've been sitting ducks;)

Well if the Germans still had an air force to speak of, that would have been a problem indeed. AFAIK they bombed the beaches in preparation, but especially in the Omaha sector most of the ordinance was dropped behind the lines by mistake.

@Cameronius: Unless you scored a decisive defeat you should be able to start the next scenario. You see, I designed the Omaha beach chapter as a "rocky start" and anticipated heavy damage to the core force, as is historical. However:
a) Since it's the beginning of the campaign, there are no experience points on the line
b) The next scenario is basically a small mopping up skirmish, after which you can reconstitute your force (mostly, anyway)
It would be nice if you tried the 2nd scenario. It is only 18 turns long, or something of that order, so it should be a fast play compared to the first one. If you still feel the beginning is too hard, I will change it.

[Imp]

I have not had a chance to play it yet but your answer is a good one, perhaps you should state something similar in the campaign text.
My gut feeling is if you adjusted it the best suggestions are a few more rocket launching barges & perhaps the DD tanks a bit early.
This would give you more tactical options where as cannon fidder promotes bad play.
Most campaigns seem to be pitched to easily your core taking few losses, less than in most regular battles so people expect the majority of their core to survive. The ANZAC campaign (I think) was the exeption very hard in places with the odd easier one that let you rebuild.

[Ts4EVER]

Yes maybe I should note it in the scenario description. After all, receiving such a schelacking in the first scenario probably dampens your motivation a bit.
Just for comparison, in my own test game, where I used the "historical" deployment, I scored a draw. I managed to clear the northern most strongpoint and draw as well as the southern one, and I would have cleared the other one int he south too if the scenario had been a turn longer. All this with heavy casualties of course, but that is the point.
I have not tested this, but I think if you used more "gamey" tactics like offloading all units on the northern beach you could actually clear the village and attack the bunkers form behind, thus scoring a victory.

[Double_Deuce]

This is purely my personal design preference but I figured I would throw it out there anyway. In my campaigns, I tend to try and start with a smaller, easier battle for the player to get help get them into the story without them running into too many casualties with smaller "catch their breath" scenarios placed throughout the campaign. Its not an easy thing to do as it will always be harder for some than it is for others due to experience, gamey tactics, etc. Too hard and people get frustrated, too easy they get bored.

In this campaign storyline though I don't really see a way to start the player small and then ramp things up since they have to go straight into the landing. Something you may want to consider is 2 distinct campaign branches, one harder, one easier and let the player choose in a pre-game scenario the path they want to follow. Its more work but not as much as you might think since you are doubling up the use of maps (a big time consumer) and the friendly core force only needs to be included in the 1st scenario.

I use an Excel Spreadsheet and Access Database for managing campaign data when I build them if you have those programs and are interested. In the DB, you can generate all the campaign text files from a single click BUT they are not real intuitive and there are no "instructions" how to use them. You may have to manually go through each file afterwords and clean the editing of each file to make sure its looks good in the game interface though. :D

[Ts4EVER]

I decided to change the map description to prepare the player psychologically for heavy casualties. I also let the DD tanks arrive earlier (even though I doubt they will survive long on the beach), gave the player additional naval artillery and changed the loadout of the German bunkers to have fewer MGs.

[Imp]

I had a little go only half a dozen turns & be a while till I get back to it due to other commitments but observations being critical.
1) Personal prefrence, I would prefer the FOO as first unit bought so easier to find especially in crowded beach landing.
2) The baz team would be nicer if split into 2 or 3 teams
3) Landing craft loadouts as you supplied are a bit strange
Whole baz team in one while others just contain a single baz.
Perhaps just lay them out by platoon with their landing craft buy them & let the player load, you could get rid of a few landing crafts to.
Negates the need for the filler scenerio as can see what forces you have.

I landed correctly one company each beach & easy red is the one having a hard time due to that damn sniper & they are taking most of the arty. In the South virtually unopossed so far though a fair few bunkers I think.
Perhaps add a few turns as I lost contact a lot with my naval arty & lets you move landing craft into range to drop observed shots.
All landing crafts are still alive just damaged.
For beach landings smoke is key need carefull thought land your mortars & MGs wrong & your in big trouble.
Z fire mgs & z fire your mortars to get smoke down early & let you spread out.
I got this wrong on easy red but the other landings the beach was completly hiden by smoke the turn after I landed the mortars. One 60mm mortar direct firing smoke blanketed 90% of the beach by its self.
A lot can go wrong but if you can land your mortars right it helps a lot, remember to leave them a path through the smoke to direct fire & place smoke further in.

You need to survey the beach carefully quite a few beach hexes are actually shallow water so slow movement, dont know if this was an error or on purpose.

[Ts4EVER]

The whole landing barges thing is a bit wonky. In the first version of the scenario I bought the barges per hand, but then additional ones automatically showed up when the scenario was placed in the campaign.

[DRG]

The whole landing barges thing is a bit wonky. In the first version of the scenario I bought the barges per hand, but then additional ones automatically showed up when the scenario was placed in the campaign.

Normal game behavior and only "wonky" until you understand it.

Don

[Ts4EVER]

Well is there a way to stop the game form automatically buing transport for your troops?

[Imp]

Played a bit more & I can see for those that like their core to come out unharmed they may not like it as your core is really the least important units apart from your mortars, I have lost one.
Smoke is absolutely your freind here & the enginners are the guys that need protecting as they do all the work, clearing the beach & bunker busting.
Dont give up the arty hurts to start with as there seems to be a rocket battalion but of course they run out of ammo fast. It starts very hard but gets easier if you get your smoke in place.

SPOILER



Either I was very lucky with my arty or there are not many infantry units supporting the bunkers, snipers have been by far the biggest headache. Smoke & using the core for recon is letting the engineers get round the bunkers & deal with them in relative safety.
As you said if I had ignored easy red apart from a few perhaps to reveal the defences & landed everyone on the bottom 2 beaches a break out & circle behind the beach defences in force would most likely have been feasible. Or indeed everyone on easy red as it seems less well defended though my troops there are locked down, the arty is only small stuff but its made clearing the beach fortifications very problamatic. Still its all falling on them leaving the forces at the bottom of the map free to move unhindered.
Taking all the victory objectives is most likely not possible unless your mad enough to run into unknown territory on trucks but thats fine I anticipate breaking out of the bottom road & capturing those 3 victory hexes there by about the halfway point of the battle & then moving up to help easy red get off the beach. By then the sniper there will be out of ammo but boy has he had fun hes killed a lot of men.

[Ts4EVER]

To repeat my earlier question:
Is there a way to prevent the game from buying transport for your troops in a campaign?

[Rosollia]

Have you tried opening the map in the editor and using the "$" key to remove the beach landing attribute from the map?

[Rosollia]

Just played the first mission of this camopaign. I think the dificulty level is spot on. I deployed all my landing craft in the North and after securing the beachead (mortars X fireing smoke were important) I moved inland and captured the rear villages. I did not end up capturing all the victory hexes and the Souther beach defences I left alone.

At the start of the second mission my troops started on landing craft and on land! Now I understand whats the problem. This map is the same as the first map and is set to beach landing. As mentioned in my first post you need to use the "$" key to remove that beach landing parameter/attribute. After that the scenario should work as intended as a land battle.

[Rosollia]

I ran through all the scenarios in this campaing in the editor and noticed that the first four missions were all set as a beach landing map even though only the second mission is supposed to be one. You probably used the "Add a Strip of Beach" button for one map and then build other maps ontop of that. Simply changing the C050s000.dat, C050s002.dat and C050s003.dat scenario files to ones with normal map parameter did not help. It appears the beachlanding parameter gets saved in the ucamp050.dat file when building the campaign. So one also needs to replace the scenarios using the campaign editor.

I attached the corrected files in this post to save you the effort. :) There should no longer be landing craft on the ground in land battles.

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks but when I tried it out the troops were still loaded into transport at the beginning of the landing scenario. Am I missing something?

[Ts4EVER]

Never mind, I fixed it. Thanks for your help!

So for anyone interested, here is the new version, without buggy landing craft and with some other fixes and difficulty changes.

I deployed all my landing craft in the North and after securing the beachead (mortars X fireing smoke were important) I moved inland and captured the rear villages.

Yes, that's what I meant with "gamey approach" (no offense). I thought it might work that way but hadn't tried it myself. If you deploy historically, you will lose a good chunk of your core force, but in the long run it won't mess up your campaign.

[jivemi]

Either I was very lucky with my arty or there are not many infantry units supporting the bunkers, snipers have been by far the biggest headache. Smoke & using the core for recon is letting the engineers get round the bunkers & deal with them in relative safety.

Taking all the victory objectives is most likely not possible unless your mad enough to run into unknown territory on trucks but thats fine I anticipate breaking out of the bottom road & capturing those 3 victory hexes there by about the halfway point of the battle & then moving up to help easy red get off the beach. By then the sniper there will be out of ammo but boy has he had fun hes killed a lot of men.

It appears that snipers were the biggest problem on Omaha Beach, at least for Imp. Come to think of it, snipers were my biggest problem in "Totenkopf Attacks." And snipers can be pretty devastating in just about any scenario where you're attacking against them.

This strikes me as a tad unrealistic, but then I've never experienced combat (thank goodness!) and I appreciate the sacrifices that many talented people have made to create and sustain this wonderful game too much to complain.

So my question is, What are the best ways to beat snipers--especially if they're dug in? Imp suggests smoke and recon. Any more suggestions?

Thanks and have a great day.

[Imp]

The problem with snipers is the disruption they cause which can slow down the game if they are used correctly, particulary if you dont have any vehicles.
If you cant see him fire arty light mortars (AGLs in MBT) & Z fire usingthe furthest unit.
Anything to raise his suppresion making locating him easier.
Kill him with MGs or by getting close, hence the smoke, better yet if you have vehicles (especially accurate ones in MBT) hide & let them get an easy kill,
snipers die fast vs a high tech armies autocannons & tanks. They are much more of a headache in WW2 due to its more infantry based nature.
The good thing is the disruption they cause is expensive snipers rarely kill their point cost. Cheap ones (no fire control) dont kill a lot.
5 FC often cost more than a squad so have to kill 8 plus men. etc

[jivemi]

Just finished the first (Omaha Beach) scenario. Like Rosollia I deployed north and after getting off the beach things really opened up. Would've had a marginal but the game ended after Turn 31, with units directly adjacent to 2 of the last 3 VH's worth 250 points. Shucks. (So why wasn't the last turn played out? I've had this happen before, must be some reason.)

Smoke was absolutely essential (btw how do you z-fire it?). Got one DD up front early to help out, the other was still swimming when the battle ended. Lost quite a few trucks, a handful of squads, and the Navy's gonna sue me for loss of a barge :-). Otherwise the core force is practically unscathed.

Overall it was fun, at least for a beach landing scenario without much armor. I'm looking forward to the next battle. Nice job Ts4EVER, and thanks!

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, as I thought landing on the northern beach exclusively is the way to go if oyu want to keep most of your initial core force. My only conern is that it might make the next scenarios a tad to easy, but we'll see.

[jivemi]

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, as I thought landing on the northern beach exclusively is the way to go if oyu want to keep most of your initial core force. My only conern is that it might make the next scenarios a tad to easy, but we'll see.

"...a tad too easy"? Maybe so, but the second battle wasn't exactly a cakewalk. Got all the objectives but since core units weren't restored from the beach landing they counted as points against, so the result was only a marginal.

There were enough German units to make a fight of it; the last VH (bottom left of the map) wasn't secured until Turn 17. Don't know how I would've managed if at least half the core had been put out of action on Omaha. Thank smoke shells for that!

It's quite a challenging scenario so far. Should be interesting the rest of the way.

@IMP: You were right about snipers. They're not the killer app against infantry I thought they were. Just use the tools at your disposal along with sensible infantry tactics. Enemy snipers haven't killed anywhere near their point cost so far this campaign.

[Ts4EVER]

The second scenario is mostly supposed to be about avoiding needless casualties :D The third one is more fluid and you can really hand the Germans their asses if you do it right, as a change of pace from the beach.

[jivemi]

The second scenario is mostly supposed to be about avoiding needless casualties :D The third one is more fluid and you can really hand the Germans their asses if you do it right, as a change of pace from the beach.

Hmmm. Guess I didn't do the third one right :o, despite taking all the objectives. Along with a few infantry squads ALL THREE tanky-wanks got whacked (ouch!). Don't know if it was my incompetence or your devilishly clever placement of those 75mm AT's. Probably a combination of both. So again, only a marginal.

Not that it would have made much difference: when I said "the core force is practically unscathed" from Omaha it was an exaggeration. There were quite a few flamethrowers and bazooka teams that perished unnoticed. It wasn't until fix time before scenario four that I finally realized it :doh:. At least now most everybody's up to snuff, so there's no excuses going into the fourth battle. Wish me luck.

[Ts4EVER]

Good luck then!
Next map is going into the hedgerows, better get used to those until the britanny part of the campaign starts ;)

[Ts4EVER]

OK, new and probably final version of the campaign, with adjusted difficulty levels and some other fixes.

[Rosollia]

Just started this campaign from the begining using this latest version.

Completed the first mission (the beach landing). This time I deployed my forces historicaly and suffered quite heavy casualties. Not sure if I can complete the campaign and replace my losses, but I will try. I did manage to take all the beach victory hexes and destroyed 10 bunkers. The battle ended in a draw.

Btw. I did like the version where the landing barges were automaticaly loaded more. In this new version of the beach landing mission the infantry is stuck on the water hexes and you have to manualy load everyone onboard. I found it somewhat tedious.

[Rosollia]

I finished the Campaign finaly. The scenarios were quite challenging to me but there were some easy ones too. I used up all my repair points but never managed to fix all the units in the core force. It might have been good to give 200 or even 250 repair points after the battle at Brest. That way the player would have enough points to reapair the whole core force and possibly upgrade some units to different ones. Or then its just me sucking at this game. :D

The last mission of this campaign was also very hard. I noticed that the map had been set to Winter status so the infantry moved quite slow. With the mud and mine fields I could not capture all the victory locations in time and the battle ended in a draw.

I think the best strategy for that final scenario would probably be to attack the Southern bridgehead with one comapany and the Northen one with two. Still A dificult task with the slow movement, mines and heavy enemy artillery. I will have to try it again someday.

All in all I did enjoy this campaign it was difficult but fun. :up:

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks for the feedback!
About the last level: You still did better than history, in reality the 116th attack was stopped cold by artillery.
Did you play the old version with 16 round limit or the longer, new one?
Also, was there any level that "stood out" to you, either positively or because it was no fun at all?

[Rosollia]

Did you play the old version with 16 round limit or the longer, new one?
I played the version with 32 turns. I believe the problem was that I diverted all my troops to the North and then I just did not have enough turns to reach the Southern victory hexes. The enemy artillery was devestating. With a better strategy I believe I could have captured all the victory flags.

Also, was there any level that "stood out" to you, either positively or because it was no fun at all?
I think these were my favorite scenarios in the campaign:
- St Andre
- Setterrich
- Julich Counter Attack

I did not find anything majorly wrong with the other scenarios either. Here are just some small things:

In the scenario Task force sugar where you had to destroy the German Graf Spee battery I found it almost impossible. The battery is at the map edge with victory hexes under the bunkers. One would need to use alot of smoke and advance the infantry along the map edge to get behind the forts to destroy them I guess?

The trucks in the core force were not very usefull and most of the time I just deployed them in the map corners and did not use them. Only scenarios that I think I used them were:
- Fontenay
- Task Force Sugar
- Montbarey

The most anoying enemy units to me were the snipers, the small LMG troops and Scouts. These were so hard to spot and ofthen sneaked right next ty my troops and caused casualties. The Scouts and LMG units are size 0 so that makes them so hard to spot. As for the snipers I would avoid the expensive cost ones since they are so overpowed.

[Ts4EVER]

Yeah, smoke is the key for the task force sugar scenario. If oyu use smoke from the 60mm mortars and the heavy arti on the trenches you can easily overrun them with the Rangers, since the infantry units are understrength and really bad.

[jivemi]

OK, new and probably final version of the campaign, with adjusted difficulty levels and some other fixes.

Hi Ts4EVER. Just came back to Spww2 after a few months' hiatus. Was going to finally begin the hedgerow scenario but then I saw you came out with the "final" version.

Question: Is this save compatible? No big deal, I'd like to complete the campaign regardless, but if I install the latest version will it screw up the remaining scenarios? If so, I'll just continue with the current version.

Thanks and sorry for the delay. Your efforts on this campaign are much appreciated.

[Ts4EVER]

Frankly, I'm not sure, I never tried it. What kind of changes would make it incompatible?

[jivemi]

Frankly, I'm not sure, I never tried it. What kind of changes would make it incompatible?

Heck, I dunno. I'll just install it and see what happens!:D

[Ts4EVER]

Maybe make a security backup before.

[jivemi]

Hi Ts4EVER. Just finished the first bocage scenario (campaign battle #5) with no problems getting to the next.

Got a marginal again--about 3,050 to 950. Captured all the VH's but lost six Shermans in the process. Still, even without losing even one there wouldn't have been enough for a decisive (8:1 ratio, I presume). Seems like I was also a bit careless with the groundpounders. I need to balance
my focus on mission accomplishment with more consideration for casualties--with only one(!) fix point some of my core guys won't be around for the next battle.

Truly a marvelous challenge. Your devilishly clever placement of AT guns once again caught me napping. Didn't expect a 7.5cm Pak40 to be placed out of the way (but on high terrain)in that dead zone in the south center (hex 43,48). It got two kills from distant side shots, one tank to the north and a second to the southeast part of the map, before I finally figured out what was going on. Serves me right for being too lazy about scouting the map for likely locations!

It's too bad Spww2 engineers can't blow holes in hedgerows, but you found a good solution with obstacle hexes. One little quibble: Some hexes that looked like hedgerows were in fact clear terrain, but since it helped save time I shouldn't be complaining, eh?

Definitely had a good time. As a former Spwaw devotee it's taking awhile to get used to a different (but more realistic IMHO) system, and scenarios like this make the learning process an enjoyable experience. Hope the next one's just as fun.

Thanks again for taking the time to make this campaign available. Have a great day.

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks!
Yeah I don't know how the problem with the hedgerows happens. Just assume your guys found an unexpected opening.

[jivemi]

You bet. Give me a centimeter, I'll take a kilometer...

[jivemi]

OK Ts4EVER, just finished the sixth. Got another marginal since there was only one fix point going into it and nearly half my core had been destroyed along the way. They counted against me in the score, otherwise would've had a decisive since I got all VH's and lost only one tank this time.

Also going into the seventh there's only one fix point. Is this the way it's supposed to be or is the installation of the final version screwing them up somehow? It's practically impossible to get a decisive unless the core is replenished. Or am I missing something?

[Ts4EVER]

IIRC you will get more repair points after the next scenario. I wasn't aware that unreplenished casualties from the previous battle counts against you. I guess I could try to balance that out by making enemy units more expensive or award more points for victory hexes.

[jivemi]

Sadly, the surviving core--along with most of the relief force--was overwhelmed in the last (seventh) battle and the HQ lost, so the campaign's over. At least they got a few Panthers and Stugs before going down.

It was fun, although a lack of fix points meant I was going into most battles already a couple hundred points or more behind the eight-ball. Maybe you need to do something about that, I dunno. Rosollia made it all the way without fully replenishing his core so no doubt sloppy play on my part was the main culprit.

Overall yeah, it's a great concept and a real challenge. Thanks for sharing it with us and I wish you best of luck in the future. Cheers and happy gaming!

[Ts4EVER]

Thanks for playing! Yes, it is certainly possible to beat the campaign, but it is more important to conserver your force than get all the flags in some scenarios.

[jivemi]

Btw Ts4EVER, in that last battle my defending units were not entrenched (or dug-in). That was an assault for the Germans, right, so shouldn't my units have been entrenched automatically?

According to Mobhack:

"In an assault game, every defending unit gets an entrenchment, whether you press the E key or not. It's a function of the save or the load code that ensures that they do.
The assaulter's infantry and soft arty etc also get entrenchments as well. Bar a few oddities.

The entrenchments are not "optional" in that mission, about the only ones that do not get one are units deployed in a building hex, and also I think some others like swamp hexes."

No big deal, just wondering if maybe switching to the latest version mid-campaign might've screwed things up. Thanks.

[Ts4EVER]

I think it's a german advance.

[jivemi]

Right, in which case I should've entrenched my units manually during deployment, n'est-ce pas? That would've almost certainly gotten me through for some needed repair and replenishment. Pretty dumb, huh? :doh:

Also, I'm probably wrong about destroyed/damaged core units counting against you in the next battle. That didn't seem to happen during the Kursk campaign, and I can't see how yours could've been any different. Sorry for the bum steer. :o

Finally, had I known about "selling" unwanted core units for repair or changing core units it might've made a difference. Gotta try that the next time.

Thanks again for creating this challenging campaign Ts4EVER. Happy gaming! :)

[trawler10]

Recently downloaded the new SPWW2 CD, latest version plus latest patch... played the first game in the 29th Infantry campaign, earned a draw, but could not advance to the next scenario... this is the second time this has happened. Is there a glitch?

[Ts4EVER]

There was a mistka made when the patch was created. This should fix it:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=49678

[trawler10]

Thanks, have downloaded fix, begun new game and hopefully will be able to move into the next scenario after first game finished. Appreciate prompt response... Bob

[SaS TrooP]

Did a playthrough of your campaign in 2022, based on in-game available version.

Its generally good, I like touch to detail, but it has... flaws. Let me focus on these. I also intend to play the remainder of your campaings, not sure how much these will apply to the other:
1) Scenario length in total: scenarios have too little available turns. Player has a constant feeling of deadline ahead. This forces very aggressive tactics, often resulting in rushes onto enemy positions, and this means mounting casualties. If you wish careful battalion maneuver management you should add at least 10 turns for each scenario to effectively allow this. This follow on with...
2) DRAMATIC limitations on replacements between battles that make this campaign more like a struggle for survival rather than properly suppored American advance to the Rhine:
a) First of all, there are no indications of how long you are about to fare without replacements what heavily complicated planning as mentioned in 1).
b) Also, you give no ability to skip scenarios so you fare with extremely damaged battlegroup for most of the time. Remember this epic French campaign you made for me? We could steer on when my force is pulled into reserve, but you cannot do this here.
c) About 3/4 of the campaign time I fight with reinforced company. I was NEVER able to fix my AT gun platoon, mostly eliminated by Axis artillery - you barely can outmaneuver that. Same applies to 81mm mortars mostly destroyed during St. Lo outskirts counterttack AFTER my few remaining infantry was wrecked by rear advancing Axis (so not like they were left unprotected);
d) So player should either know that he will not be reinforced for eg. 2 more battles AND should be warned on planned reinforcements allocations. 25pts is waaaaay insufficient if you take about ~80 casualties per battle, some being formations KOs;
e) Not sure how the others, but know that I am playing WITHOUT any form of z-fire against the AI. I was doing some recon years ago and players prefer limiting z-fire as much as they can. Not sure how you playtest, but obviously z-firing would make this a whole lotta easier. If you planned this for zfire, you should clearly inform players about it;
f) Fun fact: deadline was so bad I NEVER EVER dismantled any hedgerow, just attacked right ahead on the roads :P
g) If there is intel on what sort of enemy force we are facing, there should be at least a limited indication on spotted enemy deployment. Its good we know that a battalion of Volksgrenadiere is deployed on our sector. Cool, but where? We gotta know from somewhere this this force is here, right?
h) One more thing with reinforcements. I see that you like - which is a nice touch - to counter my losses with diminshing Axis numbers within squads. Indeed many German units often have only like 6-7 men (as in reality) and depleted equipment. However mind that Axis squad having 6 men out of 10 is considered full if edited in manpower section. That means they get no penalty for losses in action points. That means German 6 men out of 10 men team fights better than my 8 men out of 12 men squad. Because my squad is listed as damage, not manpower. This effectively badly supports the opponent, and SPWW2 does not allow me to transfer troops between squads. For example, I cannot recreate Bazooka Teams by moving from my rifle squads and effectively I cannot reinforce my AT capability. I hope you see the problem as I paint it;
i) One more flaw, but I am unsure of this one. Axis gets weird bonus points other than artillery stack throughout most of campaign. I believe Axis benefits from any of my destroyed units even if these were destroyed in prior scenarios. This means that I get penalty for losses over and over and on many occasions I am pushed into draw even though I have clearly scored a minor win. I do not make campaigns though, so I am not sure if works like that;
3) Final scenario - attack on remaining Ruhr pockets from Korslar - is incompletable. It is December already and game counts the map as winter one. Even though there is nos now, just grass, I get movement points halved and only make 2 hexes on roads. It is quite impossible mathematically to even reach the flags, let alone break the resistance. This scenario requires AT LEAST 30 turns of time;
4) Deadline stress often forces tactics to force AI into counterattack. I do not believe it is a planned matter on your behalf. You are playing for Axis to dislodge from their positions to wreck them (expect of one Normandy scenario where it is directly suggested). Mind that Ai counterattacks are generally retarded. I myself consider them unwanted unless specifically scripted and rely on turn 98 mechanics a lot. Good example is assault on Korslar and Bourheim (night attack). I rushed the assault with aux units on Bourheim and completed it somehow in like 14 turns. I reached the flags and triggered counterattack. I waited for about 4 turns and only then at turn 18 (out of 27 I think) I moved my core force onto Korslar. I destroyed like 2 platoons of outpositioned VlkGren while remaining ~2 companies were happily en route to Bourmeim avandoning the primary defense position. This ingenious rule allowed me to save my precious 25pts replacements points and thus I had 5 instead of 4 platoons of combat capable force. I even managed to recover one M1017 section destroyed in July 1944 and opened a cold beer from pure happiness imagining on how it is to have an MG in my battalion as I nearly forgot this <3

I hope this comes in helpful :V
I will try with other campaigns, too.

[Ts4EVER]

Now this is a blast from the past :D This being my first campaign, I don't doubt I could do better now. In fact, I was itching to get back into the SpWW2 scene. Maybe remaking this campaign could be a good summer project... I could use venhola now as well for more accurate maps.

[SaS TrooP]

Yes please make me another generated we gonna play for like 3 years <3
Romania or Hungary? :3

Also please fix tracer in AP ammunition in M13/40 in FH2 as it is not possible to determine where main gun rounds land over distance (or slightly adjust backblast exhaust).

[Ts4EVER]

I was rather thinking about making a remake of this campaign, maybe scenario by scenario together with you. Regarding the M13/40, I will pass it on, not really my area.