Bill101

I'd be interested to know when you've selected the Army, what can it do? Can it move at all, and if it can't attack the air unit, can it attack the British Corps in Siwa Oasis?

The scenario looks good! Changing the actual graphics within the Unit Sprites files just requires pasting a new image in place of the old one, and if you take a graphic that's already been used in a previous edition of SC, then you can also copy and paste the outline of the unit from the Silhouettes file. Making new graphics from scratch is harder but can be done. For instance, in the SC:WAW Spanish Civil War scenario, some of the armoured vehicle graphics were modified versions of photos I took of some of my 20mm wargames models. It took a little bit of trial and error, but they worked! The files you would need to have saved into your campaign directory, and which you'll need to change are: unit_sprites_3d.bmp unit_sprites_3d_mirrored.bmp unit_silhouettes_sprites_3d.bmp unit_silhouettes_sprites_3d_mirrored.bmp

Hi Your scenario sounds interesting and I look forward to seeing it! For the Victory Conditions, the best thing to do is to take a look at the Victory Conditions scripts in one of the standard campaigns and copy those scripts into the script file in your own campaign, amending the details as you see fit, e.g. you'll need to remove the references to London, Washington D.C. etc and replace them with the tile locations for Kharkov, Kiev, Stalingrad etc. Take a note of the order in which the different Victory scripts are in the file, because this is important. For example, Major Victory conditions should be above Minor ones, and the reason for this is that the scripts are read in descending order, so if they aren't placed in the right order then someone could be granted a Minor victory when they really deserve a Major one. For your bitmaps, page 150 of the manual has the basics of making it so that you can use customised graphics in your scenario. Be sure to use a copy of the graphics files and everytime you save the graphics file, you can Refresh Bitmaps in the editor to see if the new graphics look good, are in the right place etc. You might find some useful graphics in previous games in this series, especially the AA because I'm pretty sure that we used a German light flak graphic for their AA at some point which might be just what you're looking for.

Carrier upgrades don't improve their ability to attack ground targets. The units to use are Tactical Bombers, and if Japan's supply is really low then their income should be too, so it shouldn't take too long. Make sure they have HQ support, and you can also hit the enemy garrisons with amphibious units to add to the effect.

Could it be because his HQs are still within range of resources, possibly even high strength ones in Manchuria, and therefore they are providing sufficient supply to their units? I'd have to see the situation to be able to comment further. If the above isn't the case then please feel free to send me a turn (and password if applicable) to Bill@furysoftware.com

Yes, increasing the number of strikes would have that effect, because in the Pacific game AA had two strikes.

I think this must be a bug, unless of course the AA has been set to have multiple strikes. Is this just in a particular scenario or have you noticed it in more than one?

Not for nothing were the troops who fought in India and Burma known as "The Forgotten Army". One could have been as brilliant as anything, but events there just didn't hit the headlines like events in Europe did, and that's the reason you may not have heard of them.

I agree. Slim's book, Defeat Into Victory, is probably one of the best WWII books to have been written by someone who was there. It's also a very good guide to strategy and generalship in general, so a lot can be learned from it. I've read it a number of times, and can see myself reading it some more times yet!

I seem to recall from a discussion we had in Beta testing that this does work, but I would strongly suggest trying ideas like this out in a very small test campaign first, because it will be so much easier to see that way whether or not it works as intended.

I think this is normal behaviour, because I know I've had this happen to me at times, and in reality Norway fought on for longer than France did. It does unbalance Axis strategy a little, but only significantly if the Allied player is willing and able to divert resources in that direction. So in some circumstances it could actually make a conquest of France all that much easier. PS I'm glad you got everything installed and working fine!

Slim is considered to have been one of the best generals of WWII, and some of the others who also served there were pretty good. You seem surprised that Slim has such a high rating. I'd be interested to know why? Remember also that these HQs are good in the context of conflict in S.E. Asia. Although they can be shipped elsewhere, they're not very likely to turn up on DDay in France. But even if they had been there, I don't doubt that they'd have done just fine.

Possibly, but because units are so expensive it probably won't matter for a while. I've only ever played it with hard limits on, so I can't really say.

Don't your Transports suffer badly that way?

The MPP raid multiplier that Masterclaude mentions is the thing to change. Increase it, and your subs will get even nastier!

From memory, there are either some more Panzer units in the Production Queue or will arrive by script. I can't really be sure without looking, but if you can't see any in the PQ then they will arrive by script.

When you open the editor, select File and then New and the editor then asks you to select the dimensions of the map you'd like to create. This will give you a totally blank map, on which you can then fill in the land and everything else you'd like. I'm sure you're aware, but there's a lot of information on using the editor in the Manual which should get you started on campaign design. Alternatively, you can export the map data from one scenario and import it into another, without importing the country data, units etc. This could be another way of starting your own designs?

The way to do it is to cut the railway lines linking a city to the Capital (or Industrial Centres). From the next turn, supply to, and income from, that city will have been halved. Then if you can eliminate any supporting HQs, or drive them off through air attacks, and bomb the city with strategic bombers, in subsequent turns you've got a good chance of taking the city while its defenders will be at very low supply. The benefits of this are that the defenders will fight poorly when at such low supply, and there's a good chance that your opponent won't be able to reform this unit at reduced cost, because only units destroyed at supply of 5 or more can be bought back at reduced cost. Edit: It looks like Wushuki and I were typing away at the same time!

The Allies would really benefit the most from having the USA in the game as soon as possible, so if your opponent has sent the fleet out early then I would say let him. It gives Germany more time to hammer away at the UK and USSR before US forces will be able to arrive in Europe to help turn the tide, and Japan will also enjoy a little more time of peace. The US fleet at Pearl Harbor is only deployed when the US joins the Allies, so while as a result of this US strategy you may find it harder to launch a surprise attack on Hawaii, the delayed US entrance into the war is of so much more benefit to the Axis that you can enjoy this moment for as long as it lasts. But once Japan starts attacking neutrals in S.E. Asia and the Pacific then the situation will change. This low US mobilization does of course open up the possibility of a Japanese invasion of Siberia... with the USSR out of the war an Axis victory is far more likely.

Do you play using the military icons? Only I think a quick way you could compare is to switch modes during a game, just so that you can see what sprites your Level 2 Fighters are using, and your tanks too, etc. Another alternative is to copy the sprites file and add text to the copy so that it's labelled, e.g. Tiger I = Level 4 Panzers. Would that be the answer?

Ah, I see your point now, and you're quite right that if the USA does decide to send supplies to China via the Hanoi-Kunming railway then they will end up with a higher income than if they didn't lose Nanning. But it does requires that US investment to send the supplies, and Nanning is an important target for Japan to take. Still, this is certainly something for us to think about though, and well done for spotting it!

It's best not to expend too much of your income against China because you need to build up for war with the USA, but researching Industrial Technology and, when the time is right, going on the rampage round South East Asia will soon see your income rise quite dramatically. Unfortunately it will bring you a whole host of enemies too, but then this is war!

Not quite, because there are supply scripts hitting tiles 252,63 and 254,63 that represent the Japanese preventing supply reaching China via the Hanoi-Kunming railway, so despite now getting supplies via the Burma Road, China should have no net gain from the deal. Coupled with the supply hit when the actual railway is cut, they really do lose out when this happens.

Yes, the Siberian deployment is triggered by Axis advances, and the Soviet winter is triggered separately. Therefore sometimes the Siberians might arrive before the winter, and sometimes after.

I didn't realise Hubert was writing a response at the same time!