mcaryf1

This all looks very exciting - I have been playing around with Division sized units on the previous standard map for SC GC and it does work but is rather crowded so this could be an ideal scale from my perspective. I used the special forces slot and I guess this is what you have done. I am interested to see that despite the larger map you have not included the Arctic so you do not have the campaign that really happened when the Germans tried to take Murmansk operating out of Norway and Finland. RAF fighters actually participated with RAF crews in the initial defense of Murmansk but from the map I am assuming you will not do that. Are you including Lend Lease in this campaign or at least its impact in terms of extra Russian air and tank units? To be really accurate these ought to be limited geographically to where they appear thus initially in the North to help the battles for Leningrad, then in the South via Persia to help in Stalingrad and of course a lot via Vladivostok that has to be shipped great distances to get to the front line. In my attempts at scenarios using current Strategic Command Global Conquest Gold I have experimented with the idea of specific factory locations such as the actual tank plants at Stalingrad and Gorki. If these are held by the Russians they get extra tank units appearing in those locations, if they are taken by the Axis they then have the potential to generate extra units. I presume that the Event facilities in this new variant of SC are similar so a modder would be able to do that still. Anyway - very exciting. Mike

Hi Hubert Thank you for the offer. However, I have run some further tests and discovered that the standard High Tide scenario also crashes my PC albeit after 6 turns. I am now thinking about whether I have messed about with any of the media files that the standard campaign also uses or what changes I have made to my system software. The funny thing is that the PC happily stays running all night doing other things but now seems to crash after about 20 minutes when running SC. My son runs an IT support team looking after a network of schools so I will ask him if there is any system debug tool I could run that might intervene when SC crashes the system to see what is going on. Regards Mike

A brief update - I tried the scenario with the AI not operating in quick mode and it still crashed my PC so it is not that. I should say I have made minor changes to the flags and some of the unit icons but that was some time ago and seemed to work OK at the time. Unfortunately I had got a bit lazy and made changes to the scenario without keeping the most immediate previous version as I thought the changes were relatively minor. I would have to go back through about a month's worth of minor changes to get to a previous one. I am surprised that whatever the problem is can actually crash the whole PC - any thoughts as to what might be able to do that? Regards Mike

Hi Guys Unfortunately as it crashes the PC there is nothing in the ERROR folder, I guess it has no time to do that. It is not reproducable in the sense that I restart from a Save and it will not crash in the same place/time interval but it will crash within about 20 minutes of my restarting it, so seems to go round the cycle of the Axis turn then an Allied turn and then crashes in the next Axis turn. So it will do one Axis turn OK in which it previously crashed but usually crashes the turn after but once has gone to 3 Axis turns before it crashes but always in the combat resolution phase. I am using a Beta version of the S/W that Hubert gave me which fixed a couple of faults I found but those faults would not appear to be related to this problem. Regards Mike

I hope Hubert or one of his colleagues might be able to offer advice although I am using a quite heavily modified version of Axis High Tide. To test my scenario I set it to play itself and use functions F1, F2, F3 to monitor what has happened. I found today that my PC had crashed after it had been running this way for about 20 minutes. I had had some PC trouble with defective RAM which I thought was fixed so just restarted and set it off again from the last turn where Axis would play (I am being Allies so need to start at an Axis turn to get F3 to have the AI control the allies as well). It played the Axis turn and the following Allied turn but crashed on the next Axis turn after about 20 more minutes. I tried again and this time it managed 4 turns but yet again crashing during an Axis turn. I set up my phone to video what the AI said it was doing and it appeared to be a Combat J Bombers followed by Thinking (Combat ??) then the screen goes blank as the PC dies. Unfortunately my phone video resolution is not good enough for me to read the ??. I did it a second time and it seems to be the same sequence but I still cannot read the ??. Unfortunately during the second attempt at videoing it lasted 23 minutes before crashing and I had stopped watching the AI messages by eye before then. I am using Quick logic, Quick animation etc etc every setting to make it fast. I do have modified bombers with very long ranges e.g. equivalent to 3,000 mile round trip for an IJN Emily (AP = 18) which is historically reasonable. However, this has been working fine for many months and my recent changes have been minor tweaks to starting forces, a couple of extra towns in Finland/Norway to represent Banak and Petsamo and some use of Morale as a victory condition modifier (no decisive Victory if Morale near zero). Anyway nothing to do with Bombers. Any suggestions as to what I should look at to fix this? I will try playing it as a human again to see it still crashes but, even if it does not, I do need the AI to be able to play itself for testing. Regards Mike

Hi Bill Thank you for your answer - I presume the same applies to a minor ally and the value above the convoy % is just lost or notionally used by the country for its own non-war purposes. Interestingly that makes India worth more to Japan with its 100% convoys than to the UK which was only taking 50% or less and spending that on the Indian Army! For major countries helping each other the player has the option to vary the % within certain limits from the convoy screen. Thus the Allied player can cut back on the UK convoy to the USSR if there are too many U Boats active on the route. I wonder if the AI ever makes that type of decision. As far as I can tell Japan just acquires all the available MPPs from captured Chinese cities without needing to convoy them. I did think for a while that they might get added to the Manchuria convoy but that does not seem to be the case. I suppose it is a fair argument that the war in China was costing a huge amount to be spent in China so a lot of the booty would be retained there rather than shipped home. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert or Bill or someone who knows I have been wondering whether I really understand the convoy system so could I please give some examples. The Solomon Islands are featured as a minor country ally with a city Kukum (not accurate to be a city historically but never mind). There is no convoy associated with the Solomon Islands so does the UK get a city worth of MPP credit as long as it is owned? Nauru is defined as British teritory - does the UK get MPP credit for the phosphate mine on Nauru? If Japan captures Nauru, does Japan get any credit for the mine? if Germany has captured UK would it be Japan or Germany that got the credit for Nauru? Does it matter that there is no convoy back to Germany from the UK? I note that the raid icons by Nauru actually reduce the supply for the mine but there are no equivalent raid icons off Kukum to reduce the supply of the city there. Is there any reason why Kukum's MPPs are not interdicted? The only Axis convoys from captured India go to Japan. What happens if India is actually captured by the Italians or Germans? Would Japan still get her convoys? If I made these convoys less than 100% would the remainder go to whichever Axis country had captured India or are they lost? If Japan owned the port of origin for the convoy (Calcutta) but did not own all the cities in India because some were German, how would the convoy value be calculated? I notice in the Convoy scripts that UK typically takes 30-40% of the MPP income via convoys whereas if Japan captures these locations her convoys take 100%. Is this because the UK still gets to spend the 60 - 70% MPPs that she does not take via convoys, notionally as in country spend, whilst Japan has to take 100% or else the remaining MPPs are lost? Regards Mike

Actually it was a 1942 start scenario so Persia was already conquered by the SU. I assume that it would perhaps have to have been liberated at some stage during the scenario otherwise what would be the difference to me attacking Japan in Manchuria? Regards Mike

Hi Hubert Actually the unit was destroyed so I could not retaliate at that location and I tried whether I could attack the Japanese elsewhere and I could not so that is what I meant rather than the unit being attacked could not retaliate. I have tried it out with another approach to handling that unit and it seems I can retaliate in Persia but not against Japanese occupied teritory elsewhere. I am not sure whether Persia had been reconquered by the Axis as I took over the game from the AI so it is possible that had happened. The place I tried out attacking the Japanese in retailation was Manchuria which was of course a Japanese occupied territory. So did this probably happen because the Axis had already liberated Persia once? Regards Mike

I have encountered a situation where my Russian forces in Persia seem to have been attacked by Japanese troops advancing through India and yet I am not at war with them and cannot retaliate. It is a little difficult to be sure what is happening as there are Italian forces plus artillery behind the Japanese, who are at war with USSR, but I a pretty well convinced that the Japanese were attacking me as well as the Italian artillery. Is this something that I should expect to happen - there were incidents in WW2 where troops disguised themselves as other nationalities to create provocations but I did not think the AI was that clever. regards Mike

Seems to be working now thanks Hubert Mike

Nope just the one game. My eyes have got used to it now so I can see what is happening a bit better. Mike

Hi Bill Thank you for the scripts - would the effect in Gold therefore be that the relevant countries just stopped fighting each other and their units could remain in situ when they were on conquered areas? Would there be any way of reactivating the war, say, after 1 year and would the production of either side be impacted if they went to a state of non-belligerence? Regards Mike

Hi Bill Could you post a sample syntax of a DE forcing an armistice? Thanks Mike

Hi Bill How does ARMISTICE work - is it something that can be forced by circumstances? regards Mike

There is a minor script error in Axis High Tide and probably other standard scenarios as well. It is in the Surrender_2 group and relates to the Axis taking over Tunisia if the Allies capture Algeria (as actually happened). Here is the script ; Italians and Germans Invade Tunisia ; Historical date of event was after Allied Invasion ; in Mers el Kebir on 1942/11/09 { #NAME= Germany And Italy Invade Tunisia (Historical) #POPUP= Allied Landings In West Africa Prompt An Axis Invasion Of Tunisia #IMAGE= #SOUND= combat1.wav #FLAG= 0 #TYPE= 1 #AI= 0 #LEVEL= 0 #GV= 1[1,100] #LINK= 0[0] #COUNTRY_ID= 59 #TRANSFER_ID= 6 #ARMISTICE= 0 #TRIGGER= 100 #DATE= 1942/11/09 ; Set variable conditions: ; 1st Line - UK politically aligned with Allies and not surrendered ; 3rd Line - Vichy Algeria politically Axis and surrendered #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 1 [2] [100] [0] #VARIABLE_CONDITION= 37 [1] [100] [1] ; Allies control Algiers #CONDITION_POSITION= 72,26 [0,0] [1,1] [2] [0] ; Axis control Tripoli #CONDITION_POSITION= 80,28 [1,1] [1,1] [2] [0]} The error is that the condition re Tripoli only triggers if Tripoli is Allied owned rather than the intended Axis owned. I noticed it because I had occupied both Algeria and Tripoli in the same turn and was suddenly told that the Axis had taken over Tunisia but of course, since I already had Tripoli, they had no forces there so I just walked over Tunisia and conquered it whereupon I was given an understrength Tunisian Corps as an Allied unit! In practice when correcting this error it might be better to specify that the Axis has 3 or more rather than 1 or more units near Tripoli otherwise the Axis would not be able to defend Tunisia and it would be better for the Allies to have to DOW Tunisia rather than have it as an ally. Two other comments - there is a variant on this script further on in the group and it has the same error re Tripoli so both need to be fixed. Secondly I have not seen ARMISTICE=0 before. I presume it is a hang over from a WW1 scenario but is it usable in GC? If it is, then there was a historic possibility of the SU coming to a negotiated peace with the Axis. It might be fun to have a scenario where the Axis player can be offered an option to have at least 12 months of Armistice with the SU once the Axis has captured Moscow. This might give the Axis a chance to focus on the Western Allies and defeat the UK before the US is powerful enough to stop that. the SU would of course be able to build back some of its armed forces during the pause but the aid convoys would stop. Regards Mike

I activated the AI to play itsel when testing a scenario and set it on quick animation. I took over plaing myself a few hours later and although I change the quick animation button it carries on being quick. Is this a fault or is it supposed to be unchangeable? Regards mike

Thanks Bill Mike

This is a somewhat long post about what I am trying to achieve and it ends with two questions about how the game engine will treat the convoys I am describing. I have been experimenting with a Pacific Convoy route to represent the US Lend Lease Aid that went that way to USSR. In fact a very significant proportion went by that route and was unmolested by Japan whom I guess did not want to get into trouble with USSR by that stage of the war. For those of you who have not looked at how convoys work this seems to be the way of it. Each minor country can send a convoy to its major partner and each major country can send just one convoy to any of its major Allies. There can only be one convoy route active from each country (major or minor) at any specific moment. The scenario designer can specify several alternative routes in case, for example, the first route's destination port has fallen into enemy hands. The game selects each convoy route in the sequence they appear in the convoy script and only looks for the next one from a country if the initial route is unavailable. In the standard scenarios there is the possibility of the US using a Pacific route to send Lend Lease to the USSR but it would require the US to UK route to be out of action (e.g. UK Government in Canada or Australia) and a potential US to Arctic Russia convoy also to fail. I have not seen it actually occur but that is what the convoy script specifies. In fact the Pacific route saw the greatest traffic for US goods to USSR but as the US can only have one outbound convoy it obviously has to go first to the UK so it is the UK that effectively passes some of this aid on via its convoy routes to USSR. In order to create a convoy route between the US and USSR via the Pacific I decided that I would make one for the (mostly) empty ships on their return journey from USSR to USA. This seems to operate satisfactorily. I set up a Decision Event for the Allied player to agree to set up a regular payment to the USSR from the USA and part of that effectively comes back again in the USSR to US convoy. There is a risk to the Allied player as two interlocking DE events effectively take a charge from the US and credits it to the USSR for the rest of the game regardless of whether the USSR has actually survived. To make it a bit of a gamble I charge the US in its DE forty MPP per turn but I credit the USSR with sixty MPP of which it sends about twenty back again. Thus if things work out it costs the US 20 MPP but the USSR gets 40. Of course there is always the risk of the convoy being interdicted so there might be losses and in the worst case the US loses 40 MPP for every turn for nothing if the SU is defeated. I am finally getting to the question I would like to be resolved - if Japan is at war with USA but not USSR how will convoy interdiction be handled for a USSR convoy to USA? Clearly German submarines ought to attack it but will Japanese ones? Finally a general question about convoys - does the game engine automatically direct AI raiders to convoy routes or is that something that the AI naval scripts have to take care of?

Hi Hubert I do not have to send you a saved game. If you just try the standard Axis High Tide scenario you will find that the yellow highlight which indicates the interception range is actually lighting up at full range minus 1 not spotting range minus 1. In fact I think spotting range minus 1 might be too short as in this scenarion the unmodified planes can only spot out to 2 so the intercept range would be just 1. I think spotting range itself might be about right. Regards Mike

Hi Hubert But is that what is actually happening? Regards Mike

Hi llhnickerson I guess they changed it because it is Function F3 now. Regards Mike

In major engineering project contracts there are usually facilities for stage payments. I would like to set up a Decision Event to allow countries to pay an amount per month over a period of time to make it easier to fund a major purchase such as a BB. Unfortunately when I set these up with a Decision Event being paid monthly for 2 years the associated Unit event, which had a date two years hence, was triggered as soon as the DE was agreed. I am guessing that dates are subordinate conditions and I am finding it a bit difficult to understand in which circumstances that might be the better option as there is a FAILSAFE DATE facility to force an event to trigger if that is required. Regards Mike

Hi Pzgrndr It certainly seems as if the yellow highlight indicating the intercept range goes out to maximum strike range and that is what appears to happen in the game. I increasingly use the AA unit to provide protection and I give that a range of 2 as I regard it as conceptually a number of AA batteries assigned to a theatre mainly because space constraints would make it too unwieldy to have lots of AA units occupying squares. The same sort of argument applies to fighters but in that case it is the steady increase of range from higher tech levels for fighters that makes them seem anomalous. Regards Mike

It seems to me that as aircraft are teched up with longer ranges then the interception ability becomes unrealistic as it is effectively happening over 100s of miles and there would not in reality be time to react to an enemy attack. I realise aircraft units represent several hundred actual planes spread over a number of airfields therefore not necessarily just in the actuall unit square but higher range tech should not increase the number of planes but rather how far they can fly. I suppose you could possibly argue that tech is also about radar early warning but I still think interceptors go too far. I went back to check what the manual says about interception and that seems to indicate that interception relates to the spotting range rather than the strike range but in the game it seems to be the strike range that is used. I was thinking of suggesting that interception should be limited to half strike range (fractions rounded up) but if it really is supposed to be spotting range then that would be better if it can be made to work. Regards Mike