Scenario Preview: Lebensraum 1939

[klesh]

Greetings all,

This is to announce the near completion of this 'new' scenario. You've seen the map before in Exile's Age of War scenario, but thats where the similarities end. This scen is intended for PBEM play with events forcing certain diplomatic situations. These can either be used by the players to shape a game, or be totaly ignored.

One of the interesting things here is that most nations have relatively equal unit building abilities. I tried to make this a rather level WWII scenario indeed. The Germans of course have a few more units at start, and the ability to construct more varied types than most nations. France and Italy have no late war heavy tanks of course, because there is nothing really to fill that gap. However they respectively have 2 armour units and 2 infantry. National strengths are reflected, but only subtly.

And there are alot of nations represented indeed, with a twist! Here is a PBEM map that I will include in the download for people to use in their game. See if you can make out what is going on?!?

[klesh]

I think using the scrollbar here is great to ad a full intro text.

[klesh]

Here there German has the decision of invading Poland. He needs to work quickly though, as his western defenses wont hold out long against the Brits and French...

[klesh]

Here the Germans have successfully been able to hold off the Allies long enough to move their forces along the autobahn to the west. It seems it was just long enough, as the fall of France has come quickly. Proper management of the French army could've prevented this...

[klesh]

An the Germans really get saucy when they chose to strike at the Soviets. This will definately bee a tough one. I will be inpressed if someone can tear into the Soviet Union... But this is PBEM, perhaps they might side with the Germans againt the Italians. Being that the scen starts in '39, with alot of territory being held by the AI (intended for the player to declare soverignity protection) there should be alot of room for political manouvering and backstabing. This is WWII in theme only, it shouldn't follow history per se.

[klesh]

After awhile, the Americans and British decided to do a bit of fighting too. Here we see them in their Operation Overlord, invading German-held France. You know the routine. The Americans are represented both by a military unit buildable to England only (unless she trades it) and a wonder which will aid the war effort.

[klesh]

Here are the Soviets, holding only one bridgehead across the Oder, making their final assault on Berlin. Germany is pretty much doomed at this point. They can build a desparation wonder that might save them...

[klesh]

So I just have like a afternoon's worth of work to get the thing ready for a PBEM test over in the other forum. I have already mentioned this and have a list of people to play it. I think Sun Tzu wants to get one on over at CFC too, but I'll be iun this one here. I'll prolly throw this test version up pon geocities or something for download as well.

Ok, fire the questions away...

-FMK.

[Pavlov]

Are there nukes in this scen?

Which nations are supposed to be controlled from the beginning? (Except for the usual suspects. Turkey?)

Can I play?

Oh and this looks bloody good!

[klesh]

Hey Pavlov, Nope no nukes in this scen. Too devastating for a PBEM imho. Another thing is no railroads. What you see there is roads, with the look of rails. Default railroads are called 'city limits' and surround major cities.

Fully playable nations are Britain, Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, and France. Spain and Turkey are also playable, but just as in the war, they arent as large a threat. They can however mix it up a bit...

I had a player's list from when I had told a few people about this. Henrik, Marko, Case, Anzac, SunTzu, Me, but thats only 6. Lets wait till I get the PBEM thread going to see if those guys are still up for it. You can certainly have a slice of the pie though.

-FMK.

[techumseh]

If you don't mind that I'm working on a similar project (Global War) I'd love to participate.

[Case]

Well, I'm working on a project that looks almost identical to this (great minds think alike ), but I'd be happy to participate/steal all the good ideas.

BTW, are you using a special terrain for rivers?

[H Tower]

well if this is almost done, when are you going to start on Stalingrad again?

[klesh]

HTower, Probably when this is all tidied up. I am in the midst of doing a long describe.txt for this, but it isnt needed for testing.

Case, yes how is AaA going? And yes, there is a high movement terrain laid under all of the river tiles. This makes bridges very valuable untill one discovers Combat Engineering which allows them to be rebuilt. Even then, as construction is based on movement values, bridges will take awhile to reconstruct. Traveling down the rivers of course acts as though you are on a road.

Techumseh, but of course.

-FMK.

[Case]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Klesh
And yes, there is a high movement terrain laid under all of the river tiles. This makes bridges very valuable untill one discovers Combat Engineering which allows them to be rebuilt. Even then, as construction is based on movement values, bridges will take awhile to reconstruct. Traveling down the rivers of course acts as though you are on a road.

Cool. I was considering doing that, but I ran out of terrains. I have set things up so that river crossings are a bit tricky though...

Re AaA: I just finished placing the initial German units in their historical starting positions

[our_man]

Errr... From the map FMK it looks as though Ireland is part of Britain. We were, with the exception of the North however, an independent nation by 1939. And since de Valera was in power at the time, our policy was very anti-British (the Economic War had only just finished). It would make more sense (as well as increase my jingoistic pride) if Ireland were independent.

It looks great, and how on earth did you manage that trick with the scroll bar?

[SetuSinger]

Looks wonderful!
Why is this just for PBEM?

Pleaaaaaaaaaaase, some more screenshots!

[klesh]

Our_Man, yeah, I am aware of that. However, I wanted there to be a decent bit of British soil completely out of reach for the Germans for gameplay reasons. The limited size of England, Wales and Scotland just doesnt hold enough cities to ammas a considerable enough striking force for full continental invasions. Even though Ireland is small, it is at least a guarentee of a few unharrased cities for amybuilding's sake.

Perhaps I could do to Ireland as I have done to the (to be) Axis powers in the Balkans. I am surprised no one has asked why Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria look as they do on the map in the first post...

The scrollbar thing was posted in a thread by Allard (I think?) quite awhile ago. All kinds of fun things with the Civ code in there!

Pol Pot, I wanted to have a strangely even WWII type of game with only hints at the real history. Having be a PBEM allows for this quite nicely. Now, why is it only for PBEMs? Its not, per se. However, the events file contains nothing to make this one follow history. You could, of course, cue it up and play right along having diplomacy with the AI and everything. Dont expect the Germans to go headlong into the Soviet Union without signing peace 8 times in the process.

-FMK.

[klesh]

I think we've reached a concensus.

-FMK.

[Case]

Er, Londonderry should be British

[klesh]

bloddy hell, you're going to make me open civcity again just because my atalas print is too small.

[Grothgar]

Its not that i dont love changing history in PBEM's, hey theres nothing i like better . However that picture of the french army storming over the German border should be quite impossible. The french army of 1939 just wasnt cut out for attacking warfare, the chance for that to happen went out when they kept re-inforcing the maginot line. Frances entire army was sorted for a defensive war of attrition, ala WW1 so you should make it kinda hard for the french to invade until well into 1940/41. maybe by having the french tanks with a movemant value of one. I know that your trying to make this as PBEMy as possible but some historical fact have to be in there.

[Case]

Originally posted by Grothgar
that picture of the french army storming over the German border should be quite impossible. The french army of 1939 just wasnt cut out for attacking warfare, the chance for that to happen went out when they kept re-inforcing the maginot line. Frances entire army was sorted for a defensive war of attrition, ala WW1 so you should make it kinda hard for the french to invade until well into 1940/41. maybe by having the french tanks with a movemant value of one. I know that your trying to make this as PBEMy as possible but some historical fact have to be in there.

Well, if Rob makes his screenshots like I make mine, those units were simply plonked into position via the cheat menu

While the French Army doctrine of 1940 was defencive, the army was actually fairly well equiped to fight an offencive war. France had more tanks then Germany, and the French infantry formations were more motorised then their German equivalents. However, the French prefered to sit behind their fortifications and wait for the Germans to come. Given that the Maginot line did chew up the German units unfortunote enough to attack it, this wasn't such a bad strategy.

[klesh]

LOL@Case, indeed.

But LOL@Gary too, because that is supposed to be a picture of the Germans sweaping south of the bulk of the French and BEF, just prior to the swing north to Dunkirk. Note the French units in the first row in red. (I tried to simulate reality at least Nick)

-FMK.

[Caspian]

Hands up who wants to play as the Polish Sandwich. Here is my political interpretation using smilies

GERMANY ---- poland ---- RUSSIA


[EDIT] Awww, Poland isn't playable.

[Caspian]

Being more serious, and playing as Devils advocate, I saw an interview with German General Manteuffel who said that, during the attack in poland there were no armoured units of any consequence in the west and parts of the "west wall" ( or the sigfreid line to us Tommy's ) were not even complete. The french even crossed the Rhine for a few days before bolting back again. I would say that, with the right leadership a proper attack could have had some success, at least forcing the Germans to withdraw forces from poland. Surely a pbem French player would have that kind of bottle.

Ps, I love the little light houses that I can see in the screen shots.

[Eivind IV]

Just moved the main capitol of Norway (Oslo) to where it is suposed to be

[Grothgar]

Caspain, your arguments have merits, but however, in september 1939 the germans had mobilized all their forces for an invasion of Poland, britain and france declared war when they did. However the reason france didnt steam across the border like a bat out of hell was that they hadnt mobilized any of their army, really they hadnt, thats why germany got to attack france, they finnished their mobilization about 10 days before the germans came storming through

[Case]

Hey FMK, how did you get this into 'poly news?

[Caspian]

Well, Grothgar, I bow to your superior knowledge on this matter. However, my source tells me that rather than slow mobolization, the French were too efficient and had to release scores of men again for essential war work (hehe, those silly frenchies..hehe). As far as he armour, I don't know anything about this, but we all know that their main drawback was the deployment of tanks piecemeal, rather than in combined hard hitting units, despite the fact that some of their tanks were better than those of Germany.