Timskorn

Would be a good addition, but it doesn't seem like a high priority as much as other things. Considering how long it even takes to make fortifications, you could just place on the map the few a human player would make as Russia. Most players either build around Moscow and/or Stalingrad, and maybe 3-5 at the most before German units arrive. Say 2-3 in front of Moscow and 1-2 near Stalingrad. The result anyway wouldn't be much different than if we had a script for it. The only 2 countries that do it are Russia and Germany, and I think German AI would benefit the most from the script, as they could place fortifications in France and eastern Poland, and maybe even Italy based on certain conditions.

Odd, I've used this tool pretty extensively and with the editor running in the background and have yet to crash.

Open the folder to the campaign you want to edit, it'll automatically open all the scripts for that campaign.

Yep, small chance though. I usually didn't see it happen.

Which cities in particular? If you happen to know which ones let me know, and I'll add them to the city garrison script.

This should be bumped. Ben, could you upload this to cmmods.com? Wouldn't want the only link for it disappearing in the forums. This tool has really been invaluable and making editing faster and more efficient. There's really no reason not to use this program if you edit scripts.

I was guilty of this, in my first game online as Axis. I completely screwed up Barbarossa and DT wiped out a good 3/4 of my military by mid-42 outside of Moscow. With only, literally, a handful of viable units left the next best defensive line would have been eastern Poland. So, my apologies. No more concessions from me, I'm fighting all the way back to Berlin next time!! Or Washington...

Very nice! Nice move cutting off the Caucasus. If you can secure all those MPP's it'll give you some breathing room in Russia. I've found that the strength of the US lies in their combined air and land attacks. France is much easier for the Allies to take when they can bomb and strafe any hapless Axis troops that poke out from cover. I assume the US hit North Africa but were defeated?

I always test at +1. I'm not the best player in the world so if I can have a tough challenge with +1, I can reasonably expect casual players to get beat at +1 and expert players to have a challenge at +2. Also, for people who get beat on +1 they can always scale back to .5 or 0. Ideally I want most casual players to have a tough time, but a victory at +0. If casual players can beat it on +2, then that's not good!!

There should certainly be more of an incentive to at least take Denmark, maybe even Norway. Like others said, if it ultimately hurts the Axis in the long run there is little reason to do it. For example, it'd be a better strategic choice if I knew taking Norway would net me a lot more MPP's than leaving them be, but at the cost of having to garrison it. It makes for more interesting choices and a better risk/reward.

For those who don't check the mod forums, the latest version of my Allied AI mod is up at www.cmmods.com This is the standard 1939 campaign, meant to only be played as the Axis. This mod does no physical modifications of the map, nor give the AI any artificial boost to MPP's, units, etc. Everything is done via scripts! List of the major things done: USSR ---- - Prepare to meet the Russian war machine! Better defenses, better research, better production! UK --- - Possibility of sending additional troops to Egypt. - Will land effectively on D-Day - May defend longer in France France --- - Chance to send diplo chits to Iraq. - Chance to research IW before Blitzkrieg USA --- - Chance to launch Operation Torch and Operation Husky. - Expect US Airpower Domination over Europe! - Effective D-Day! For those who play, it'd be awesome if you could post your experiences in the thread in the mods forum. This way I can continue to make adjustments based on player strategies. Thanks, and enjoy!

I'll be updating the file soon with some minor changes. I also just realized something! D'oh! I mentioned in another thread that US units in North Africa weren't being used for Husky. Come to find out, the first FRIENDLY POSITION listed is the one used to check for available units! Since it was Washington, it kept checking the US instead of North Africa. Glad this is fixable!! - Removed chance of UK landing at Oslo. - UK may send additional help to Alexandria - US Torch operation 50% chance of happening, only checked one time, and only if the UK still holds Egypt. - Minor tweak to secondary US landing for D-Day with target Paris (Only occurs if UK captured Benelux and Allied control of Brest). - Tweaked Husky landings so units in North Africa are used. - Tweaked Husky HQ support, landing at either Palermo or Bari. The more AAR's from people playing the mod I have, the more changes I can make to make it better. Primarily, I'd like to hear areas where the AI seemed the weakest, or didn't have a script to compensate for something you did. This way I can possibly add some checks in to help deal with different strategies. [ June 23, 2006, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: Timskorn ]

Good to hear. I've seen the UK take Trondheim before, and I left it in there because in most cases it they shut off the convoy from there. Never seen them go for Oslo though, but I know there is a script in there for it. Thanks for the info on that, I'll probably just take that one out for the next version. I also took out some of the 'sneak' scripts, such as the UK landing in Germany. At best, they temporarily diverted some of your units back west early on but ultimately get destroyed. Not worth the UK losing 2-3 units over anyway.

It's up! Check out www.cmmods.com it's under the old header but it has the latest file up. My last playthrough I'd say I lost. Possibly if there was a "Sue for Peace" option I could have gone for that, as I had enough punch to make it hell for the Allies, but ultimately I was losing. After I ground to a standstill around Moscow, the AI managed to liberate Finland in 1943. They got about 200 MPP's worth of loot too. Fun game though! I actually had to defend in Russia and pick my opportunities to attack, and know when to retreat. With all my units tied up in Russia, I couldn't really help the Italians in North Africa nor defend the Allied bombing raids in France. When the US hit Algiers and Tunisia, my beleagured Italians didn't have enough to put up a fight and I had to retreat back to Italy. When D-Day occurred I only had enough units to defend, and couldn't do my typical huge counter-attack that eliminates the Allies in a few turns. Allied air power chewed up what units I did expose. I'll be playing again tomorrow and see if I can do better. I'm interested to hear how other people did!

Finally! A real challenge. This one will be going up at cmmods.com in about 30 minutes or so. First off, I didn't get to Moscow until late 1944. That's how stiff the Russian resistance was. They had good IW, but low AT, so until I could muster up 4-5 L3 panzer units I could barely hold the line near Smolensk. The US sweeped North Africa and then invaded Italy. The US/UK landed in France in mid-44 and took Benelux and Paris. I ended in early 1945. Even though I had taken Moscow, half of my units were in the purchase queue. I could hold what I had, but with the pressure in Italy and France there was no way I was knocking Russia out. I could have pulled back and reformed a line around Smolensk, sent my armor units west to defeat D-Day and then back east again, but I hated the prospect of giving back what I had fought years for! Plus allied air was so potent, even if I beat D-Day I probably would have lost 2-3 panzers in the process. It's not perfect, but this is the first time I've actually been beaten by the AI.

I just saw this tonight as well, not sure if it's the same thing. The UK landed and took Benelux, then took Paris. Air units in the UK continued bombing Brest and other cities in the now Allied-controlled territory.

Get Itunes or some other media player and fire it up in the background! Nothing like a little Megadeth or Hans Zimmer to crush your enemies to.

Hah, that'd be pretty interesting. Instead of hands-on, you'd be drawing up the plan like a coach and hoping your players do the rest.

Been working all mornin' on it, it's coming. One more test and it should be ready. My three main problems were: Early US research. Early Soviet IW research and early Soviet garrison positions (always around Smolensk). If these three look fixed on my next test I'll be putting it up on cmmods.com soon.

Yep, definitely going to be interesting to see how this turns out. My troops are grinding down the French every turn, even in the mud and snow. Paris should fall soon. The biggest mistake of the game was op-moving the tank out, which could have easily captured Warsaw by now. Russian readiness is in the 50's already and it's early 1940. I sent an HQ back and hopefully with some decent weather I can finish this fiasco. The Spain diplo was a very lucky hit. It only hit once, but it was for 41%. Hopefully they'll be joining soon and possibly offset a little bit the consequences from the terrible attack in Poland. I blame Adolf for op-moving the panzer, or maybe the 4 cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Suffice to say I need to make some very good decisions after Poland and France fall, and have little room for error. I could try and placate the Russians with a little diplo, but that would likely result in little more than an expensive air fare for the diplomat. In order to have any chance in Russia I'll probably have to do some focus research and unit production, and hope for a little bit of luck. Looking back I'll probably try the same early moves again, except make damn well sure I take Poland early. Walking troops saves a lot of MPP's though, and in the end you'll likely take Paris around the same time or a bit later than if you do a turn 2 strike at Benelux. But as Jollyguy said, he didn't have time do send chits to Iraq, which could have netted the UK hundreds of MPP's over the long run.

Hey Edwin! Yes I have considered the "Cairo Surprise", and at least having a small probability of it happening in a script would make an Axis player garrison that area. Ah yeah, unless you made a separate script for each one, you couldn't send multiple units through the naval loop in one script. Maybe next patch! I read your Portugal/Spain invasion scripts and will definitely consider adding them once those above issues are ironed out. This would be a good alternate invasion, sending all the US ground units there to move up through Spain to France, then launching a British D-Day to coincide with it. Good to hear about tasking naval units as well. I thought I remember HC mentioning that before patch 1.02. Will definitely help! Yeah I've noticed sometimes the AI will send US air to NA, othertimes not. They sent a bomber and fighter in my last game, but only after the US had streaked all the way to El Agheila.

Hey modderites! Upon playing my mod several times I've been considering the best way to utilize US forces. The main problem is their lack of land forces. I have a good script for the US to land in NA, but ultimately there are some problems even if it is mildly successful. 1. Maximum units you can send are about 4 + HQ. If you start sending more than that, the US D-Day landing will suffer. 2. In my latest game the US captured everything from Algiers to El Algheila before I stopped them. The problem now is...garrisons! An Axis player can just amphib units to take back Algiers, Tunisia, etc and hem in the US forces. I could garrison them after taking Tunisia, but that's neither a good use of US troops nor effective as an Axis player could slowly take back each city with a couple units. 3. D-Day suffers. 4 units + HQ in North Africa means those units won't be used in D-Day, which ultimately has a bigger impact I think than North Africa. The US gets extra MPP's, including roughly 100 MPP total plunder from Algeria and Tunisia from invading NA. It also forces Axis troops away from Russia, but it's mostly Italian units and a couple German ones maybe. So this is the design problem posed to all you budding modder/designers out there! Is it worth using US units to invade North Africa? Is it possible to even have an effective US NA invasion, by holding their gains while simultaneously remaining on the offensive? All while leaving enough land power to make D-Day effective? I've been toying with some ideas. Here are some options I've been thinking of: A. All-in. The US sends 7-9 units plus 2 HQ's to NA. They stop at Tunisia and embark on Husky from there. Problems: No naval presence to protect amphib fleet. Would require dual landings, one at Palermo and one at Bari. Otherwise US units will get bogged down in the pass from Palermo to Bari and get chewed up. D-Day would be mostly US air units supporting the British. B. All-out. No NA invasion. All US troops are saved up for D-Day to maximize punch. Problems: No early pressure on the Axis. Italian/German troops in the med. will be free to head to Russia unless UK still surviving in Egypt. If I go this route, I may allow a script to send a couple units + HQ to Egypt if the UK is still there. Would still have plenty of troops for D-Day. C. Mix-in. Joint US/British NA invasion. 3-4 US units + HQ to Algiers, 2-3 British units sent to Egypt. Only if the UK is still in Egypt. Would allow attacks to come from east and west. Problems: Lots of gains in NA would mean empty, ungarrisoned cities. Even if the allies control all of NA, there's no way to send naval units there to protect the invasion lanes to Italy. D. Alt. invasion. US invades Portugal/Spain, or Norway/Sweden. Portugal/Spain are on the mainland so would allow the Axis to op-move a sizeable force there to thwart it quickly. Norway/Sweden would be tougher as they'd have to transport everyone. It'd also cut convoy shipments to Germany and allow the UK fleet to possibly get involved. Ultimately what the real issue here is Russia. If Russia is giving you a hard time and stretching you thin, a NA invasion would mean even less units available for Russia. If you're doing well in Russia, the allies would have to mount a big attack in NA to be successful.

Managed to zip through another version tonight, ugh...takes 3-4 hours! Looking better. Operation Torch and D-Day were more effective this time. Actually took about a year before I beat D-Day back into the sea. This was due to the massive amount of Allied air in the UK bombing everything it saw. I'd be able to counter-attack momentarily, then lose a unit or two due to combined air-land attack. The NA invasion made it to Tobruk, but I switched Spain over and the AI op-moved their NA forces back west to take out a Spanish city. They then headed east from there while the Italians headed west from Tobruk, both finally meeting at Tripoli with the US finally being defeated at Tunisia. Russia was tough as usual, just didn't get past IW1 which made it a bit easier this time. I stopped in mid-1945 as the Russians were losing the war of attrition and D-day had been beaten back. Some more tweaks and another playtest and I'll be putting this up for download tomorrow (Thursday).

Nice to hear you used the mod for testing. And you're right, I weighted IW and HT early on in an attempt to beef up the Russian difficulty. At the very least they'd get those techs for the Siberians, but I've since changed a lot of values. Speaking of which, I just "sorta" finished a game in the latest version. It was mid-1945 and Russia was still a big threat, but the US and UK failed in NA and D-Day. It's getting close though, here's a recap: Typical early moves. Take France in early 1940 and move Italian/German units to Tobruk to take on the British. As usual the British lost there, and I let Italy take Syria and I diplo'd Iraq before re-organized those troops back to Italy. I didn't feel like dealing with the mountains north of Baghdad. Instead I went after Vichy France and Algeria. Vichy fell, but just as I destroyed the corp. in Algiers, the US invasion force landed and destroyed my German Army division there. Soon after the US declares war on Tunisia. 4 Armies, 1 Armor and an HQ move on it. I garrison Tunisia with a L4 panzer and 3 Italian armies at L2 IW. No HQ present as it was still on its way from the Mid-east. It was a gradually losing battle so I evacuated all my troops to Tripoli. It wasn't far enough away however, and the US continued rolling me. After losing an Italian Army, I evacuated once again and set up another defense at El Agheila. This time with another German Corp. and 1 German and Italian HQ. After that I was able to roll back the US advances all the way to Algiers. In Russia, they set up an early defense at Smolensk that was trounced. A meager defense at Moscow was beaten and I was pounding at the door of Stalingrad by late 1942. That's when things slowed down to a crawl. The Russians had a sizeable force north of Moscow at Vologda, so I had to keep about 5 units + HQ there. This left my southern forces a little thin, but I managed to finally take Stalingrad. Figuring the Russians were bruised and battered, I left a small guard at Stalingrad and sent the rest down south to get the oil fields and the 2 cities. Spring of 1943. A 10 unit Russian force attacks the Stalingrad area, supported by a rocket a 2 air units. By this time they are at IW3, HT4 and AT2. I was getting close to sealing the Caucusus so I refused to divert my forces back north again. The units around Stalingrad would have to hold until I was done in the south. I finally wrapped things up down there, but my forces were thin and battered. To get a sense, I had 3 HQ's south of Stalingrad that all had units to command at one point, now I had so few that one HQ wasn't commanding anything. All I could do was hold. Russian units blasted westward, taking back Gorky, Voronez, Moscow and Kharkov. Another group was sent north to take back Archangel and still, they had plenty of units around Stalingrad and Voronezh to keep me in check. During this time I held my ground around Stalingrad and kept buying as many units as I can, forming a new line from Smolensk to Kiev until I had enough + another HQ to mount an offensive east to relieve the troops at Stalingrad. Out West D-Day happened in June 1944. Because most of the US units were used in Operation Torch, and the UK didn't have an HQ, it amounted to simply tying up some units for a few months. I have some tweaking to do here still. I really need to get the UK and HQ, but it's pretty difficult with their low MPP's. I either have to give them one or cut off production and research for a couple months and make sure they can buy one. So once D-Day was beaten back and North Africa secured, I sent those forces from there to the Russian front. Around June of 1945 I saved it and quit. The conclusion in the east at this point is forgone, as the Russians would essentially be fighting the war alone. Even so they have enough bite to probably make the game last until 1946. So it's looking really good right now. It gives me a run for my money anyway. The upgraded Russian units are a huge factor in gameplay though. Fighting L3 IW and L4 HT is a big difference from before. I did notice a bug though, where Russian L4 tanks looked like L1 Russian tanks. I think this only happens when they buy a tank at L4.

True! I suppose if I saw the lines on the map, saw that my US->UK lane was being hit, I'd use waypoints to send my ships directly down it until I'd invariably find the sub. Still not sure it's worth the effort to implement though. HC would have to create special tiles that only the Allies could see, correct?