amandus

The Italian (Centauro) Campaign includes 8 Missions The additional US-Campaign (Stuart) includes 3 Missions plus 3 Missions in for the "Single Missions" = total 14 Missions one less then in the original TOW2 Afrika 43 (without the tutorials) I have to state, that creating exiting and challenging Missions that are based on historical events, is a very demanding task. They are all very well designed and great fun to play - you can create your own missions though, using the new vehicles in the Battle Generator or download missions from the repository!

If You think You can NOT manage the scenario given, even on "easy" then You can still edit the mission with the help of the mission and camapign editor that came with the game and add some aditional assets to your force. eg. a strong tank or additional AT-AA Guns, or HMGs or change the type of tank to a "stronger" one e.g. Stuart --> Lee or Pz. IIIj L/42 --> Pz IVG - This will spoil the campaign a little but it might help you in a few scenarios where You think they are to difficult. You can even add some Arty or Air support - it is rather easy - or an allied force that assists You but is not under Your command. - but make a copy of the original scenario before You do any changes if you want to play the camaign another time in the future with its original settings. For me it is great fun to do a little "modding" of these scenarios

@ Broadsword Thank You for Your appreciation! Unfortunately they are NOT playable for the Allied side in their current setup now, unless You undertake major changes in the trigger configuration and go thru the triggers step by step and change the parameters for e.g.: @army @@enemyarmy etc.. You should add target points or areas for the Italians so that the AI knows what to do. All briefings have to be redone. If You are able to understand the trigger language it is not so difficult - but a little time consuming to adopt the scenarios for the allied side. If You would like to do this We all would appreciate Your effort. Unfortunately I do not have too much time to spare at the very moment. I am playing with the thought to create some "Long Range Desert Group" Scenarios for the Allied but I would like to finish my Italian Project first and do some reading on this subject before, to make it more realistic. My other private life is taking its toll too so please apologize

Thank You for Your intrest and Your appreciation. The first 3 missions have all been created before i dared to mess around with the triggers, and have not been published jet. Before I publish them, I would like to polish them up a little. Ok, I shall try to dedicate some time the upcoming weekend for this project. So I can release them early next week.

Quote: [Originally Posted by Moon View Post OK, I tested it and am seeing the same error, but only with those two Italian mission files. Downloads of other files work just fine with IE8. So there must be something specific about those files which makes IE8 crap out. Now, IE8 is a load of dung if you ask me so I'm not surprised at all. For the moment, please simply use another browser (firefox, opera, safari... it seems all the others have no problems at all).] I uploaded the two files using firefox, my default internet browser. If You think it would work better if I'd use IE8 instead, I shall happily do so. Just for Your info: my Operating system: Win XP SP 3 Version 20080414.031514 I created the zip-directory using my default operating system (rightclicking create zip compressed directory) and copied the files into this directory did I do anything wrong? If so - please give me a hint so that I can improve next time! Thank You!

Thank You Sneaksie! I have to pay attention - definitly

@ Archmoco 1. Start the Mission-Campaign Editor - You should see with two taps, 'MissionEditor' and 'CapaignEditor' now let us check if Your missions have been saved correctly: 2. Open the mission: either click on the icon (envelope with an arrow pointing at the top) or press 'Ctrl+O' or click 'File' (above the tabs) --> a second window should open showing You the campaign files. Doubleclick on SINGLE_MISSIONS (which opens this directory). You should find the files that You have created in here or those You have downloaded (eg. 430122_it_attack_4 , in case you have saved my mission at the right place) -- If You do not find anything in here something went wrong when you did NOT saving Your own BattleGenerator-missions -- Supposed You found Your missions in here --> 3. Doubleclick on the desired mission DIRECTORY --> You should now see another directory named 'history' and a FILE named 'Mission'. Either click on 'Mission' and then click the 'open' butten, located in the lower right corner of the window or just doubleclick on that 'Mission'-file. --> wait for some seconds and the mission is ready to be edited. 4. Now click you can change almost everyting in this mission - but let us leave this for now. Let us INCLUDE Your Missions to the Single Missions in Your game: 5. Click on the TAB 'CampaignEditor' --> You should now see two white fieds. In the left upper corner of the window you should find "+ Campaigns" 6. Click on the '+' (in a small square) --> Now You should find the campaigns in a 'tree' starting with + GERMANY and ending with + USA 7. Doubleclick on + SINGLE_MISSIONS --> Now You should find Your created Missions. IF YOU FIND THEM WITH THE PREFIX: _Not_In_List_ eg. _Not_In_List_430122_it_attack_4 than you CAN NOT play this mission when you launch Your game. To do so, You have to 8. click with your RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON on the mission --> a rectangle with the text 'include Mission to Campaign' is shown. 9. LEFTCLICK on it and the mission is now fixed to Your campaign (in this case the Single Missions Campaign) 10. NOW: either type 'Ctrl+S' or click on the menue above the taps on 'File' and CHOOSE 'Save' Now close the editor and launch Your game - the mission that You have included should by now show up in the single missions ready to play. If this doesn't help You -- please ask Sneaksy!

Hi folks, it's me again! For all of You, who liked my first installment - here comes the 2nd! It should be in the repostitory soon. Hope You didn't have to much trouble downloading and installing it. What's new? - More units - more fun? House - to house fighting - and mayby a pizzaparty afterwards (no time-limit this time!) Hope You enjoy it! If you liked the first one and You wish to carry over Your surviving troops You can already link this two battles to a 2 missions campaign.

@ Archmoco I feel like You. It takes a lot of time to create a good battle on your own but it can be fun. Most working people like us, just want to have fun playing a battle in the evening or on weekends, they don't dare to go into computer science. (Unless You are so attracted to this game like me ) Try to create some missions with the battle generator that came with both of the games It's EASY, FAST AND FUN! It doesn’t take much longer than a few minutes. Choose a map, the size and location where the battle should take place. Select the opponents and whether or not you want a time limit , Your and Your opponents units and support, add a few comments and You have a new challenge when You start the main program again! And If You think You have done fine - share the mission with us! Others like You will then have stuff to download and have fun too. Actually an average mission file has about 2 - 3 MB, therefore a download won't last long - the same for the upload in the repository. You can do this with basic computer skills with a few clicks. The created missions do not need to be like the missions in the campaigns – they can be far simpler and still be fun for us!

After messing around with the triggers and designing my own missions, I thought it was definitely time for fun. Therefore I decided to go thru the British campaign. Well, they are all well designed. Most interesting and challenging was: 1st On the way to Thala: because of it was to be a defense mission but with the submission to guard the convoy it became a defense and counterattack play which was very challenging. 2nd Sidi N’Sir: was great fun – to make proper decisions for the defensive – on the map you have vast fields of fire covering almost all approaches - but with the ongoing attack , you are losing one AT asset after the other until the reserves arrive - still then it is anything but easy. Somehow I find the map extraordinarily pleasing. 3rd Medenin: was another disposition challenge - a large area to cover with limited assets not knowing what will strike You and FROM WHERE. Infantry attack with smoke cover - well done! 4th Kasserine: Would have expected it to be more challenging – maybe one or two airstrikes less. Ok, played the German campaign first, so I knew where they will attack from. Could have been a start with the AT- positions first and to receive the armored group later on as reserves. With the Lee- tank reserves it’s far too easy to clean up the remnants of the stuck and partly disabled panzers. Anyway it is hard to judge which mission is the best, as they are all very well done and by now I know by myself how much work it is to design and direct the missions. Good work!

Thank You Oudy for Your positive response. A tactical hint: You can use the armored cars as mobile AA-guns as long as they are not on the move. Historically the 2cm KwK 38 L55 has been derived from the AA-gun FLAK 30 and used in AA-role at least by vehicles with the open topped turret.

Hi folks! Just wantet to announce that I have uploaded an italian scenario for a singleplayer mission. Whoever likes to download it will soon find it in the repository. This fictional scenario models an attack of an Italian infantry platoon on a British artillery position in a 'find and destroy' mission. The platoon is supported by a section of German Armored cars. You have only limited time to accoplish this mission. This mission is actually the 4th mission (and untill now, the last) of my planned 10 missions Italian campaign. Hope You have fun playing it!

Battlefront / 1C provided us with the Battle Generator. With it we can easily create at least some 'simple' attack and defend missions. Even longer campaigns are possible if we link these battles together. Unfortunately however only a few fans among us have the courage and dedication to share their missions and/or campaigns with the community. - Ok, the game is out for almost 2 months now and it takes some time to go thru the campaigns but all ‘TOW-veterans’ have certainly created a lot of their own single player missions – only a few can be found in the repository - it would be additional fun to download these and to play them, as we do not know the setup unless we open the mission with the Mission Campaign Editor. I know that creating even these simple missions usually takes a lot of time and without getting into the ‘trigger-business’ it becomes a little boring after some time. I like this game so much that by now I decided to overcome my resistance against this ‘trigger stuff’ and with the help of Webwings video tutorials for TOW (http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=79593) which ‘opened the door’ providing me with the basic idea how to read triggers and how to write my own triggers. I wrote my first mission from scratch yesterday – (it still doesn’t work the way I intend it to be, but it works) – At least I know how to create minefields, reinforcements and some other basic stuff. After all it took me almost 2 days to understand the basics with the help of Webwing’s tutorials and the Mission Campaign Editor Manual. Now I am looking forward to continue my 10 Missions Italian Campaign project with more ambition. But it still needs lots of time as I have to test every single mission for several times and in context with the campaign itself. Maybe ‘Tsche’ will finish his ‘Centauro Project Mod’ first which will introduce Italian armored vehicles to the game and add other Brithish tanks. In the meantime please share Your single Player Missions with the community! Thank You!

Thank You Sneaksie, You are right! Tried a small scenario with a training mission and implemented PWM - works like in TOW. Still challenging even with 3 elite AT-Teams (scoutlevel 100) against 1 Lee (novice crew)

Got mine at the end of May or on 2nd June - Austria, Europe Downloaded it on 24th April - I like it that way - 'hardcore'-fans like us can already play it and together with our experiences some inevitable bugs can be ironed out sooner!

Tche is it very difficult to implement: M4 Shermans and M3 Honeys for the British? They are already in the game and would only need a new skin? - the same for the Lee => Grant - but this needs a new turret as the British had their own version? (I made scenarios using American tanks with british crews so far - but with British skins they shurely would look better ) Are you intending to add Italian AT-guns, howitzers, HMG's, Trucks too? Anyway Thank You very, very much for Your efforts - and carry on!

My first experience with the new patch: Downloaded and installed the patch just a few hours ago. Than I played a 'homemade' scenario where the game without the new patch usually crashed to desktop after 30 seconds of gameplay due to my tendency to implement to many units - with the new patch - NO Problem! Everything runs much smoother . (My laptop specs are: Win XP SP3, Intel dualcore @ 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 2 screens, Gforce Go 7400) Thank You for the patch! - Now I have to find out the other features. (P.S. The PWM (Panzerwurfmine) still shows 3 mm of penetration - will be adressed in the next patch I guess )

Für alle deutschprachigen Spieler unter uns, die sich die Anschaffung von TOW2 überlegen und des Englischen nicht so mächtig sind, habe ich diese Bewertung in der neuesten Ausgabe des Gamestar gefunden, damit Sie sich einen unabhängigen Ersteindruck machen können. http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/strategie/44537/theatre_of_war_2_africa_1943.html (for all German speeking players among us, who are considering to buy TOW2 and whose English knowledge is not to well, I found this report/evaluation in the leatest issue of the gaming magazine 'Gamestar', so that You can get an independent first impression.)

Using the battle generator for single player has to be considered to be only the first step in creating a SP-battle. It's like a crude draft. Choose 'black or white' attack or defense and the map - some units- some support - may be a time limit - that’s it. It's great if You are done with the missions /campaigns that came with the game and want to get started with your own creativity and explore how the game works. Fairly simple - even if You have to give the AI a 'bait' to trigger the attack by the AI as 'GoodGuy' stated. To get a more sophisticated result You have to use the 'Mission and Campaign Editor' in a 2nd step where You can edit almost anything and change it the way You like it to be - e.g. ad more units (as many as Your system and the game-engine sustains) and additional equipment to the armies, add additional armies (and their status to Your force (alley, foe or neutral)) change the name, rank, experience, nationality, skills, 'backpack' = equipment / ammo of every single soldier , vehicle skin, numbering, even the faces of the soldiers are selectable and much, much more. You can change the kind, number, extend of aerial / arty - support. The position and facing of every single unit, augment acquisition points and permissions, block units /crews. - Everything without even slightly touching a single 'trigger' 3rd step is (would be) to add or change triggers using the Mission-Campaign Editor. This is the step - at least for me - where fun ends and science starts 4th (or 3rd step if the above has been left out) is to link your missions together to a campaign. You can even change the sequence of the battles depending on the outcome of the former - Some kind of 'grand' campaign could be theoretically created that way, given a sufficient amount (lots!) of missions, time and ambition to create them. The battle generator has some shortcomings and high potential though, if triggers could be installed in the same way the other parameters can be set already I imagine some kind of 'mask' that could be wrapped around preset triggers where you insert only a few parameters or a trigger is being automatically created by the program guiding the author thru some questions e.g. select unit(s) - author (player) selects the desired unit(s) set action - author selects move, attack, sneak etc… set or specify the target point / area where the prior action stops or changes or takes place show message - author inserts text he wants to be shown and selects an appropriate audio-file ‘e.g. You have new orders’ Together with a video-tutorial how these triggers can be linked together to obtain the desired result would be great for all of us not familiar with programming.

As far as I know the battlefront repository is the place to place our "home made" scenarios quote: Welcome to the Battlefront.com file repository! You are invited to swap, upload and download mods, scenarios, maps and other relevant files for all Battlefront.com games! http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314 Currently I am working on a small platoon sized campaign for the Italians. I intend to create about 10 szenaios using the battlegenerator. Purely fictional however. Unfortunately I still have big problems creating and implementing triggers and and submissions - so I expect them to be either attack or defend missions. (hope I will learn it sooner than later) As soon as I am ready, I shall try to upload them to the repository - but it will still take some time (having finished the 2nd scenario so far)

Hi Tche! Don't wanna urge you - but do You have any news about Your Centauro-project? I am missing those Italian units so much!

Liked 'In Defend' (2nd Mission / Faidpass) most closely followed by 'Sbeitla' Thala was the least exciting mission for me but mostly due to the limited diversity of British units in the game and missing British units in the town of Thala itself (maybe historicly accurate however). But don't get me wrong - I liked it. Having played the Kasserine Pass scenario with the russian demo several times before, it was nice to find out the differences between the demo-mission and the 'final' - mission in the game. It was quite interesting to sneak up the hill(s) and to take out that AT-positions from behind. In addition airsupport and experienced troops helped significantly to manage the scenario.

While creating some missions with the battlegenerator / -editor I noticed that the penetration value for the german AT-grenade PWM is only 3 mm - in the original TOW it was much higher (I could not veryfy however if heavier armorded vehicles can be destroyed /damaged using it in the game anyhow, because I put to many units into the mission and the game crashed to desktop at some time during the battle.) Noticed that the missing P40 skin too in a single player mission (created with the aid of the battlegenerator) implementing P40 ground support 2 planes, 250 lb bombload

@ Tartari: don't believe some very demanding people , this game is the best wargame ever! (along with CMAK and I hope, CM N) I totally agree with You! But … Would like to have those issues to be addressed by the developers: - More units , particularly those already present in the predecessor and /or somewhat difficult to convert from TOW to TOW2 e.g. o British: Matilda MK II Tank, Crusader Mk II / III, Churchill III, Valentine Mk V, British Shermans, Stuarts and Grants, Bishop SPG, Jeeps w. double Vickers MG (for Long Range Desert Group-scenarios) , British lorries o American: M7 SPGs , AT-Gun M3A1 (3,7 cm), 6 pdr. AT-Gun, Gun Motor Carriage M 3 (SPG). M2/M3 Halftrack armed w. Browning 0.5” AA-HMG, Scout Car M3 A1, armed Jeep (w. AA-HMG) o German: Marder-series SPGs, Sd. Kfz 233 Scout Car (w. 7.5 cm gun), Sd. Kfz 251 / 10 (w. 3.7 cm AT-gun) and probably for the Infantry AT-teams: Haftholladung (but don’t know if they were used in the African theatre though), AA-MG mounted on Sd. Kfz 251 /250 and VW-Kübel, Flak 38 (2 cm single barreled) – towed version . Spigot-round for PAK 36 (3.7 cm) (but don’t know if present in African theater) and StuGs o Italian: all – but this is already being addressed by Tche (A special big Thank You to You Tsche ! – at this occasion! Looking forward to Your work.) o All: fortifications are missing (covered HMG emplacements like in TOW), on map mortar (at least the 5/6/8 cm versions) - Battle generator improved with easier to use trigger-modules to be easily used by “non-computer experts (like me ) : - reinforcements - surrender (panicked enemy units surrounded become neutral-at least) - reaching certain areas on the map - predefined bombardment/ smoke / air attack by AI - minefields - allied army units become – player units - submissions weather is difficult to figure out except “sunny day” would be nice to have the overcast, partly overcast, rain, foggy and sandstorm as predefined options - Don’t know why heavy machine guns (MG 34/42, Vickers and Browning) are still not movable - (suggestion: team could be increased to 3 men and movable only with at least 2 men like AT-guns at a relatively slow speed) - Bailed out crews should go prone or run away and look for cover immediately after bailing out and not stand around and happily loading their pistols until they catch a bullet or have finished their loading. - Troops surprised or hopelessly surrounded and panicked should surrender and your own units should be credited for capturing enemies. - On map radio-operators / forward observers (in command-squads) to call in support / reinforcements - AI soldiers should not carry out stubborn assault orders particularly if they are knowingly run into known MG-fire or want to man an empty gun where already 20 men died at the same position on their way Hope I am not too “demanding” @ developers: thank You for Your attention and devotion.

@ Gpig I experienced the same ... at least untill I read the manual. Getting some exercise and it becomes easy basic: You control bases, not units. bases constantly produce units (up to their size e.g. 5, 10, 15, 25, 100) Aim of the game is to control all of the bases on the map. 3 parties: You, Your enemy and neutral 1st mission: After coosing a nation you usually start in the base located in the upper left corner of the map. Point Your mouse over that base (showing the nation You choose) press the left mousebutton and drag the mouse in a direction to any other base on the map. A blue arrow should appear and point to the enemy or neutral base You want to conquer. - RELEASE the mousebutton and units (tanks) start to move in that direction. They fight any enemy units they encounter on their own untill they reach their desteny. Then its up to the amount of tanks, indicated by a number over the tank, versus the number of tanks stationed in that base. If Your force is greater in numbers You take over that base ant it starts to produce units for You - so You can carry on to the next base. You will see. - it's definitly fun Hope that helped!