Playtesters wanted for modern scenario

Case · May 10, 2001, 22:00

I've completed a beta version of my scenario 'Raging Dragon'. It covers a Chinese invasion of the CIS in the not too distant future, makes extensive use of events and uses the same map as the latest version of Harlan Thompson’s Mongols scenario.

Whilst the scenario is definitely playable, I think I need other peoples opinions before I release it. If you're interested in testing this scenario, either e-mail me at: nick_dowling@hotmail.com or post your contact details below.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith
[This message has been edited by Case (edited May 11, 2001).]

Jimmywax · May 10, 2001, 22:20

If you send it to me I would play it for ya'.

Grothgar · May 11, 2001, 14:58

yeah ill give it a go. email Grothgar_1999@yahoo.com

WarVoid · May 11, 2001, 20:12

Sounds cool.

I like modern scenarios, don't see too many of em.

Send it my way to warvoid@aol.com

Mao · May 11, 2001, 20:34

I wanna try it, ChapMan85@aol.com

Pap1723 · May 11, 2001, 22:00

I'd love to playtest, sounds cool, send it my way...

pap1723@aol.com

Case · May 14, 2001, 19:18

Thanks guys. I just sent out the scenario, so check your email. If its not there let me know.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Grothgar · May 15, 2001, 15:20

First of all i must say that im offering my first impressions as ive only played 5 turns of this scenario.

1. Level of Difficulty:

I am playing this scenario on prince because i think that properly shows the scenario balance/unbalance because no side has a disadvantage. Anyway on first impressions i must say that this scenario is a bit on the easy side. Its turn 5 and i have already taken Chelyabinsk with "Army Group North" and Mary with "Army Group South". However the fact that NATO entered the game when i took Novabrinsk was a complete surprise and is probably why i havent taken more of russia because i had to take some of my planes and use them to bolster my naval fleet because they took a right pounding. So this was a decent challenge. You might want to disable negotiations between the Arabs and the chinese because i asked them to declare war on Russia and they did for little cost and they distracted quite a lot of russias hardware making it a lot easier for me to push forward.

2. Do the events make sense:

Most of the events that i have encountered have been well done and make sense although i dont think NATO would declare war on china until they got a lot closer to their border or you attacked one of their units. But as i have said it does make it harder to defeat russia by giving them time to reorganize after the pounding they take. So although i dont think it would happen i think you should keep it in there for the challenge. Also china gets a lot of hardware each turn and at the start this makes it a bit easy because you dont have that far to go and it also helps in getting rid of the NATO forces in Taiwan so i think you should curtail some of the units or at least downgrade some of the units they get.

3. City Placement and names:

Mostly all are concurrent whith their placings and names that i can see but moscow to me seems totally out of place. St Petersburg is north west of moscow but on this moscow is totally south of St Petersburg. Moving Moscow by two spaces to the right would solve this and not upset anything because there is a lot of space near moscow. Apart from this i havent found any more errors

4. The Readme File:

Very informative and very likely we could be facing this situation that is described. The only gripe i have with it is a minor one and that is that you say the leader of the CIS is Alexander Putin in the readme but in the game it is (correctly) Vladimir Putin. So not much.

5. General Sense of Completeness

As i have said the units could need polishing not because they are bad but because there are more suitable ones out there. The T-90 tank isnt that good and im sure i have sent you a better tank than that in my units file. Also the BMP-2 unit is a bit dull and the unit i have sent is much better (compliments of Jimmywax for that

). I dont think the Type 85 tank is as good as you have made it but if you dont have it that good the chinese dont stand a chance. However i think the T-80 is better than the Type 85 and this should be reflected in the stats. Also the b-2 bomber is bloody hard! defense of 8 and *100% bonus against air units makes it almost immune even to the J-12. this should be rectified. Also its hitpoints should be dropped by 1. The Badger bomber is a lame unit and it isnt even worth having in there. The Su-27 and J-12 are much better alternatives. The badger should have a better attack because although it is really old it can carry more bombs and missiles than the other two and it needs an extra point of HP because it gets decimated by the CIS infantry!!!.

Sorry to seem critical im not that far in but i have seen that this is a sterling piece of work but there is a few things that need addressing (maybe more as i get further in

) and if these are done this will truly be a great scenario.

Theres my feedback. hope it helps also hope the units helped.

Gary

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Grothgar · May 15, 2001, 15:21

Also just to add playing as china is really cool and it should be done more often

Its great playing the Underdogs(?) and then beating the big and nasty good guys

Not many scenarios let you play as china (and have a chance as well!!!) so well done!

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Grothgar · May 15, 2001, 15:22

Also just to add playing as china is really cool and it should be done more often

Its great playing the Underdogs(?) and then beating the big and nasty good guys

Not many scenarios let you play as china (and have a chance as well!!!) so well done!

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Eternal · May 15, 2001, 15:48

How much of this is based on Bear and the Dragon?

Grothgar · May 15, 2001, 18:32

Um i think i have found 2 major bugs in this game. And Case i think we have a problem.
I was quite happily pushing the russians back and had just taken the cities of Cherblyinsk and the other one north of that. However i was a bit confused because sometimes when my units tried to move there was a zone of control (ZOC) on the square i was trying to move to. I went around with a plane and couldnt see anything but still the game wouldnt let me move. Ok i thought so i ended the turn. It was then that i saw some T-80 and BMP-2 units moving into the forest and literally dissapearin it even made the graphics go funny completely annialating a cities from view which in my next turn came back. So i noted where these units had dissapeared and i decided to investigate. so i sent a plane to check and it had nothing and then i sent a tank and it couldnt get past again. I dont know whats going on but it gets worse
I was on august 2000 or 2001 cant remember and i ended my turn but after NATO had given my units a pouinding and ended their turn the game crashed!! so i treid it again and it crashed again and again and again. I tried it nine times so no mistake the game crashes on the turn after august 2001. and again i dont know why but i think that these two may be related and that the units dissapearing is causing the crash.
But apart from that its pretty good. however i would like to finnish it

Gary

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Case · May 15, 2001, 19:10

quote:

Originally posted by Eternal on 05-15-2001 03:48 PM
How much of this is based on Bear and the Dragon?

None of it. I haven't read 'The Bear and the Dragon' becuase of the shocking reviews it got and the general lameness of Clancy's last few efforts (that guy REALLY needs a good editor)

Grothgar, firstly thanks for those great unit's you sent me! I have already replaced the lame home-made BMP-2 and Badger graphics.

As for the game crashing, I've got to admit I haven't played that far, but what I suspect is happening is that too many units have been created. Could you please go into cheat mode and tell me how many units there are? (reveal the whole map, delete one unit, create a new one and note the number assigned to that unit in view mode). I may need to tone down the units in existance at the start of the game and the minor powers productive capability.

As for the Stealth bomber- I purposely designed it too be almost impossible for the Chinese to kill in order to simulate the American's far superior air force, however I may tune down its stats in future releases.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Grothgar · May 15, 2001, 19:52

did what you asked me and it came up as unit 960. well thats what it said. it could be that your creating too many units. By the way do NATO ever run out of AEGIS Cruisers? everytime i kill one it seems to create another one in a different square. Is this intentional because it sure is annoying lol.
Your welcome to the units, i think i have another lot that i could send you. ill have to do some checking on my hard drive because i wanted to send it to you with the others but i couldnt find it. It has some nice planes in it that you might be able to use

Ok i accept that reasoning for the US B-2 Bomber but it is really annoying because NATO has hundreds of them just bombing my territory. Luckily i was able to capture Tapei and make peace with NATO

maybe you should take this out of the game? Just to make it more challenging.
Anyway if you want any more units just let me know and i will see what i can find on my hard drive lol

Hope you find this helpful
Gary

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

master on high · May 15, 2001, 21:45

You need the Tu-16/H-6 cos it's the mainstay of the PRC's nuclear strike forces...

Kull · May 15, 2001, 22:03

Case: The "invisible unit" problem that Grothgar describes is probably caused by Event-file-created units. If the location coordinates in the event file place a unit on an even-odd numbered tile, they go into some kind of twilight zone. They can move around the map and have a ZOC, but otherwise generally are something you want to avoid. Check the map and you'll see that all tiles are numbered even-even or odd-odd, so it's not surprising the game has trouble dealing with units on non-existant even-odd tiles.

Case · May 15, 2001, 22:29

quote:

Originally posted by master on high on 05-15-2001 09:45 PM
You need the Tu-16/H-6 cos it's the mainstay of the PRC's nuclear strike forces...

Whilst that was the original reason I included them, I've since removed all nuclear weapons from the game and kept the H-6's becuase even though they're totaly obselte, over 120 are still in service and they continue to make up a major part of China's conventional strike force, and would play a major role in any war fought over the huge distances of Russia and Asia. (BTW, India also has a few H-6's)

Kull, Thanks for your suggestion, there's no way that 960 units would cause the game to crash so I'll go through the events file and fix this problem.

Grothgar, I'd love any more units you have -that last set was like a dream come true

I intentionally made the NATO navies have an unlimited number of Aeigis Cruisers in order to represent the United States Navy's huge superiority to the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Navy.
Out of curiosity, did you also have problems dealing with the Russian Pacific Fleet? When I play Russian subs kick the stuffing out of my fleet in turn two.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Pap1723 · May 16, 2001, 00:56

This scenario sounds very interesting, I asked to playtest it earlier, do you not need anymore playtesters?

If not, good luck, waiting eagerly for it's release, but if you are, I'd really like to try it...

Pap

pap1723@aol.com

Grothgar · May 16, 2001, 04:45

Ok i'll begin scouring my hard drive for some more units for you. I suppose you can use them better than me anyway

. And as for how did i deal with the russian pacific fleet. I took Vlad in turn one and quite a lot of their fleet are based there i think but the rest was easy. I just kept my units in their ports and youll find that the russians like to stack their submarine units outside your ports which is a bonus

So that was easy but NATO quickly kick your ass so i suppose there is a balance there. Still annoying though to be defeated lol
Hope you get the problem sorted out as id like to continue my march to world dominance!!

Gary

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Pap1723 · May 16, 2001, 10:28

Grothgar, I am in the middle of finishing up that Giga map, and it'll be done very soon, I am finalizing the terrains now with the help of a couple of others.

Pap

Grothgar · May 16, 2001, 14:53

Ok thanx Pap

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Pap1723 · May 16, 2001, 16:02

GROTHGAR--

Can you send me this scenario?

pap1723@aol.com

Case · May 16, 2001, 19:18

Pap, I'm very sorry for missing you when I first sent out the scenario. As a form of compensation I just e-mailed you a slightly modified copy of the scenario which incorperates some of the improvements sugested by Grothgar (B-2's less powerful on defence, NATO get a few less Aeigis Crusiers, some graphics replaced)

By the way, did I miss anyone else?

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Pap1723 · May 17, 2001, 11:09

Case, thanks for the file...

I am only on turn 1 still, but I noticed that there are no motorized infantry, or APC's. Personally I think in a modern day scenario there needs to be a place for at leasr one such unit.

Continuing to play, I'll get back with more.

Pap

Grothgar · May 17, 2001, 14:55

If im not mistaken Pap isnt the type 90 an IFV and thus an APC because it can hold infantry in real life. And what about the Y531 or whatever its called

just thought you might like to know

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Grothgar · May 17, 2001, 14:56

P.S Case dont i get the upgraded version for all the time and effort i put into giving you those units

just a though lol

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Case · May 17, 2001, 19:26

I've sent out the updated version to everyone. Sorry for not doing so yesterday, but I was in a bit of a rush to finish off an essay.

As well as the changes mentioned above, I've also fixed the problem of units being created on non-existant hexes since I sent the original update to Pap - so Pap you'd better replace your events file with the one I've just sent you! BTW, the offending unit was a T-90 being created in the Urals outside Yekatainburg.

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith

Grothgar · May 19, 2001, 18:10

one more thing i have found. you have put Future technology as unatainable which means unfortunately when you get to the point the game crashes. Better sort it out me thinks

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I am the LORD OF STRONDAR

Jimmywax · May 20, 2001, 23:33

I just got home from a weeklong hiatus. I went around and visited some family. I will play the scenario as soon as I can and give my two cents.

P.S. FYI that BMP is mine, just so you give me credit in the final version. Anything else with AC is mine also just so you know.

Case · May 20, 2001, 23:47

quote:

Originally posted by Jimmywax on 05-20-2001 11:33 PM
FYI that BMP is mine, just so you give me credit in the final version. Anything else with AC is mine also just so you know.

No worries.

Grothgar, thanks for pointing out the problem with future tech. Out of interest, have you actually managed to get that far in technology development?

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If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error
-John Kenneth Galbraith