Biltong's Campaign Rules - Last Lap

[SuperSulo]

Originally posted by Aaron:

I've just finished battle 19. I've had one Large Town and one Village. The rest have been Rural or Farmland. I don't know how you can have so many city battles since you can't at all in June->July.

When ever you roll up a City battle, you are supposed to roll a d10 to see how many days you will spend fighting in that city. See note 1.

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Aaron:

... Anyway, I intended to research the actual german replacement system before I finally decided what system I would personally use.

Aaron - please let me know what you find. I won't be surprised if you're right... well up to mid 44 in any case.

... the map is 1000 m by 1000 m and the setup zone is 1/3 axis and 1/2 allies and the flags are either one the edges of the setup zone (for probe and assault) or in the middle for attack....

Aaron

Mmmm... I prefer Mansteins maps... variety - esp in setup zones and terrain features. After a while the QB maps all look the same.

BTW We've just had another mapmaker join our ranks: Peter Molloy. So the risk of running out of maps are fading

Peter's busy with speciality maps. For his first effort he's jumping away and making (check this)!

5 maps for a City Battle in Kiev (Sept 41)

Each map will cater for the 7 Battle Types and 4 Map Sizes. So 5 x 4 x 7 = 140 maps!! just for 5 day's of battle!!

What can I say?

Welcome Peter!!

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Apache:

... They are two separate rules:

1) Delayed replacements

2) Immediate counter - support level and arrival times.

....

Ok Ok . 2 different animals. Still like both Both very realistic and bound to up the suspense. Got both on the 42 to-do list.

[Biltong]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

GREAT NEWS!...

You want to use the scenario editor for your campaign....

Whoa!! No promises!! Just the normal: "To be investigated" and then only for 42 South. Hold the champagne!!

In the "Parameters" screen, set the number of flags to 0 for both Large and Small flags...

Thanx - this will help the "investigation"

...I'm on my 18th battle, end of september. I've had 8 Large Town battles, with 3 more in pipeline! So in 21 battles I will have fought 11 City battles. Does that sound much?

Yes, but I think you might have been unlucky.

In any case the whole City Battle rule is about to change for the better. Peter (see post above) is creating maps for specific City Battles and the rules will be adjusted so that you only partake in a City Battle that really happened: Kiev, Kharkov etc.. The maps & history will dictate how long you will be 'in there'.

Come 42 you might get stuck in Stalingrad for weeks with 9 or more battles per week

[SuperSulo]

Originally posted by Biltong:

Whoa!! No promises!! Just the normal: "To be investigated" and then only for 42 South. Hold the champagne!!

I wasn't making an announcement for BCR, I just wanted to share this great feature I just found out about. Someone said it in some thread and I thought "What?! Why haven't anyone told me?!". I didn't mean that it should go into BCR (well, it should ), I just wanted those who use or is thinking of using the SE to know about it. So, I'll have my champagne right now.

Originally posted by Biltong:

Come 42 you might get stuck in Stalingrad for weeks with 9 or more battles per week

I can't wait!

Wait minute, city battles are horrible! Short range, soviet SMG's, no use of "superior" optics... I'll start stocking favor points to get out Stalingrad '42!

[History Buff]

I'm almost finished 41. First week of December. Just lost all my scrounged units to a human wave. The only thing that's killing me is the huge handicaps the soviets get in these later months. You try doing an assault through a blizzard with twice the amount of men facing you. But I may yet survive the winter. Question : What happen if you last battle is on the 31st of December at Night. Then you are immedeatly counterattacked? Go to 42 early? What I'm trying to say is, are all the parametres for crossing over to 42 set and explained? :confused:

[Biltong]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Biltong:

Whoa!! No promises!! Just the normal: "To be investigated" and then only for 42 South. Hold the champagne!!

I wasn't making an announcement for BCR, I just wanted to share this great feature I just found out about. Someone said it in some thread and I thought "What?! Why haven't anyone told me?!". I didn't mean that it should go into BCR (well, it should ), I just wanted those who use or is thinking of using the SE to know about it. So, I'll have my champagne right now.

Originally posted by Biltong:

Come 42 you might get stuck in Stalingrad for weeks with 9 or more battles per week

I can't wait!

Wait minute, city battles are horrible! Short range, soviet SMG's, no use of "superior" optics... I'll start stocking favor points to get out Stalingrad '42! </font>

[Biltong]

Originally posted by History Buff:

I'm almost finished 41. ...What happen if you last battle is on the 31st of December at Night. Then you are immedeatly counterattacked? Go to 42 early? What I'm trying to say is, are all the parametres for crossing over to 42 set and explained? :confused:

No, but thanx for reminding me

I've just finished 41 South's (Gold?) rules. Still got to do:

Battle Group, Favor and Parameter sheet adjustments. Adjust the Player Guide and revise it one more time. Redo the post-intro for the 'gold' launch. Go through all other docs that might have references to the rule numbering system which have changed a bit. Prepare the update doc and sent the rules to the team for revision. That's it (I think)

Launch 41 Gold and THEN I can start on 42.

One you reach 30 December (and if you're still alive mail me and I'll send you provisional change-over instructions. The Race is ON!!! :cool:

Anyone else closer than that?

[ January 28, 2003, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

[Biltong]

Hi Guys

Peter Molloy, latest BCR Team member in charge of special maps send me this mail. Some of you might find it interesting…

> i was thinking about stalingrad, how are we going to fit it in ? …

> also when we get into stalingrad itself how are we going to model it as the player will more than likely lose all their

> troops there. i was thinking we could try a few things

>

> 1. the player looses all their troops and only the CO got out and a handful of others as they were wounded and got

> transport planes out. (i read the stallingrad book by anthony beevor so i remember some of the stuff)

> 2. we could say that they were part of the attempted relief effort that failed and set it up so that they were taken out of

> stalingrad b 4 it was encircled.

> 3. finally we could create a number or special maps or have some features that allow the player to try and fight his way

> out and back to german lines as i know some but very few did this.

I like 3!!! Like it a lot - lot's of tension there: Maybe bring in a prize: If the CO makes it out he is considered Crack and gets a Veteran company as replacements... This should keep the players hopes up for 43. Maybe make this 15 battles spread out over Nov and December with the miraculous escape on the 31st Dec 42

> Lastly we could make up rules which decide the players course of action on 1 of the above paths depeding on the

> amount of favour they had somewhere in the hundreds or thousands. If they have a lot they can be evacuated and

> trade in favour, or they could be allowed R&R by trading in favour jsut b 4 stalingrad was encirculed and therefore be

> part of the relief effort. Or they could choose to stay and be forced to fight their way out or lose all their men including

> the CO if they fail to get out.

I think they must stay and fight!! No cowards allowed in BCR

But!!

What about Mansteins attack on Sevastopol a bit earlier? That Maxim Gorky Fort seems just too good to give a miss (+ 24 x Nebelwerfer batteries + 600 planes!) Maybe just 5 or 6 battles spread out between (June 7 and July 9)... Terrain and fort definitely interesting.

2 large city battles in one year…

Let me know what you think - we've got quite a bit of time and I should be a able to help you with those.

>

> Just a few thoughts

>

> Also we could try and highlight some major events of early 42 and try and work them into the campaign besides

> stalingrad and have favour decide if they are to take part or not etc. that way it will make favour more important.

>

> Another thing we could do is create a few battles besides to normal ones where players can gain a huge amount of

> favour by undertaking a really dangerous mission and make it so that the player can only do this 1 or 2 times every

> couple of months.

>

>

> how many people are using the campaign do u estimate ?

Not the faintest idea - before they got posted on the websites roughly 120 guys asked me to send them the first batch of rules... how many are still around is any-ones guess. Not everyone's cup of tea. Hopefully the launch of the Gold version combined with the Players Guide will spark some more interest.

BTW - I'm going to post this discussion - some of the guys will more than likely have some input re what to do with the battles and which ones they would like to see in 42.

[Apache]

For Stalingrad I'd be tempted to DL the Stalinngrad pack from Boots and Tracks, check out the chronology doc, ask the designers if they'd mind if their maps are used and sort of 'hard code' the playing of Stalingrad into the rules with the maps and battle types predetermined to be played as per the chronology. Might save a LOT of work.

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Apache:

For Stalingrad I'd be tempted to DL the Stalinngrad pack from Boots and Tracks, check out the chronology doc, ask the designers if they'd mind if their maps are used and sort of 'hard code' the playing of Stalingrad into the rules with the maps and battle types predetermined to be played as per the chronology. Might save a LOT of work.

I had a look at the maps - they're too small for our purposes (all medium or smaller).

To cater for all Battle Types and Map Sizes we start off with a Large/Huge map and cut it down to Large/Medium and Small, changing the objectives and even some of the terrain along the way...

One thing most designers won't like: that someone adds on to their maps - so I'm not even going to ask. We'll do it ourselves. It's a great battle and there's lots of visual and map material at hand so it should be fun to do in any case... Hope to give a hand myself. 15 Days/battles x 4 Map Sizes x 6 Battle Types = 360 maps!! No problem

[ February 01, 2003, 07:29 AM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

[Peterk]

I've been trying to think of a way to get involved in the fun and have started to write a pretty cool Java implementation of the Rules. It'll track your guys, save a history, generate the battles for you, all with a nice UI...you'll be able to type in your data and resume a campaign that has already been started on paper.

I'll probably have something working in 2 weeks or so and would need 2-3 Java savvy beta testers

to give it a spin when it's ready. Drop me a line at peterk@look.ca if interested.

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Peterk:

I've been trying to think of a way to get involved in the fun and have started to write a pretty cool Java implementation of the Rules. It'll track your guys, save a history, generate the battles for you, all with a nice UI...you'll be able to type in your data and resume a campaign that has already been started on paper.

I'll probably have something working in 2 weeks or so and would need 2-3 Java savvy beta testers

to give it a spin when it's ready. Drop me a line at peterk@look.ca if interested.

Wow!!

Why you're about it, won't you 'code' 42 South for me

Seriously - I'm sending you the 'Gold' version v2.0 due for release quite soon, so that you won't have to redo code. Couple of changes since the last version (v1.7)

[Peterk]

> Why you're about it, won't you 'code' 42 South > for me

Unless the system for '42 south (and beyond) is dramatically different than '41, my program should be able to handle them all. I basically program in all your tables and rules and use the date of the battle to decide which set to use. Works well!

I should mention that some of your rules are truly EVIL programming-wise and rival the NHL Hockey penalty system (which I had the misfortune to have to implement in code 100% accurately a few years ago) in complexity (...but nothing so hard that it's unsolvalble after a couple of drinks).

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Peterk:

> Why you're about it, won't you 'code' 42 South > for me

Unless the system for '42 south (and beyond) is dramatically different than '41, my program should be able to handle them all. I basically program in all your tables and rules and use the date of the battle to decide which set to use. Works well!

I should mention that some of your rules are truly EVIL programming-wise and rival the NHL Hockey penalty system (which I had the misfortune to have to implement in code 100% accurately a few years ago) in complexity (...but nothing so hard that it's unsolvalble after a couple of drinks).

I was joking about 41 off course, but you're right - it should be very easy to adapt. That was the plan from the start. All that will change in 97% of the rules will be the modifiers and the composition of the Battle Group. Most of the parameters will stay as is. So far we're planning on bringing in 2 special Battle Packs: Sevastopol and Stalingrad, but the effect on your code would be negligible. (mostly done via Map Packs with some special rules in the Addendums) - see what we're planning for Kiev in the update doc I sent you.

At the same time I must warn you... the players keep on pushing for changes and the rules do tend to change a lot. Hence the 7 versions we've had so far. Eventually I had to freeze all further changes to enable me to finalize 41 before the first players reach 42.

So you might find that it will be an ongoing process, with changes to your code every month or so.

[Peterk]

My evil goal is to make the tool so easy and fun to use that people won't want to change the rules very much because then they won't be able to use the program anymore (...heh heh).

Seriously, I will eventually probably put 99% of the rules (the tables) into configuration files that can be tweaked by the users as they change.

[History Buff]

Originally posted by Peterk:

My evil goal is to make the tool so easy and fun to use that people won't want to change the rules very much because then they won't be able to use the program anymore (...heh heh).

Seriously, I will eventually probably put 99% of the rules (the tables) into configuration files that can be tweaked by the users as they change.

Please oh please allow it t o work on a Mac

[Apache]

Nice one Peterk.

Biltong, just a thought and I'm not sure if the notes explain it but, when players are choosing the map type type, which Force Size do they base the modifiers on? The size of THEIR force or the size of the QB battle setting?

Once I've completed the changes for my battalion version I'll send them to you. I've made some changes you may be interested in and it may help with 42. You know the two main ones but there are others. For instance, I roll to determine a % that you must spend on air for air/arty rather than just having an Air rule. It prevents having to blow vast sums on aircraft which, in terms of success, I doubt reflect the points they cost. If I do qualify for Air I roll to see if I must spend 25%, 50% or 75% of the arty points on it, never 100% (so I always get some arty). I have also cut out Massive damage. My max is now heavy. May help those with slower systems as I believe damage slows it down a lot (I presume you can turn that detail down though - not sure).

[SuperSulo]

Some things:

Yes, "Map damage" definitly slows down the game. I *think* it even slows down the turn processing, all those craters seems to give the TacAI alot more to think about (available cover and so on). On my slow PC I use "Medium damage" as max, unless the map/battle is very small.

To map designers: If your map doesn't use any "special setup zones", ie your setup zone looks like a normal QB one (a straight zone at the edge of the map), you can do just one map for all battle types. Remove all setup zones and flags in the editor and then we import the map into the QB all those will be added by the computer as per normal QB map rules.

I know not all map-designs works for this, but if your map basicly looks like a normal QB map (but more good-looking ), you can save yourself (or Biltong?) alot of work.

[Peterk]

> Please oh please allow it t o work on a Mac

Of course it will work on a Mac!

[Eden Smallwood]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

To map designers: If your map doesn't use any "special setup zones", ie your setup zone looks like a normal QB one (a straight zone at the edge of the map), you can do just one map for all battle types. Remove all setup zones and flags in the editor and then we import the map into the QB all those will be added by the computer as per normal QB map rules.

SS = "SuperSulo", or "Shoots & SCORES!!!" ?

Kick butt, commander- that's an awesome find.

Eden

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Peterk:

....I will eventually probably put 99% of the rules (the tables) into configuration files that can be tweaked by the users as they change.

Sound good... Sounds Good...

[Biltong]

Originally posted by Apache:

Nice one Peterk.

Biltong, just a thought and I'm not sure if the notes explain it but, when players are choosing the map type type, which Force Size do they base the modifiers on? The size of THEIR force or the size of the QB battle setting?

Apache - I'm lost (remember this 'rooinek' language is not my homelanguage - you gotta spell things out for me )

If, for example, I choose 'village' which Force Size do they base what modifiers on? Are you talking about Map Size etc?... all those are rolled up as per normal... I think your question will be answered once you have a look at the map list... I hope.

Once I've completed the changes for my battalion version I'll send them to you. I've made some changes you may be interested in and it may help with 42. You know the two main ones but there are others. For instance, I roll to determine a % that you must spend on air for air/arty rather than just having an Air rule. It prevents having to blow vast sums on aircraft which, in terms of success, I doubt reflect the points they cost. If I do qualify for Air I roll to see if I must spend 25%, 50% or 75% of the arty points on it, never 100% (so I always get some arty). I have also cut out Massive damage. My max is now heavy. May help those with slower systems as I believe damage slows it down a lot (I presume you can turn that detail down though - not sure).

As for the Air rule: Great minds that has changed sometime back - see v2.0 I sent you. Note 9 - Air:

"However, you might want to buy some arty as well. You can do so. Use at least half your Air purchase points to buy at least one plane. Then you can use the rest of your 'Air' points to buy arty of your choice."

As for damage:

Just added this to 48 Damage:

"If you are playing on a 'small' PC you might have to adjust this to your configuration"

We aim to please

[Biltong]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

Some things:

Yes, "Map damage" definitly slows down the game. I *think* it even slows down the turn processing, all those craters seems to give the TacAI alot more to think about (available cover and so on). On my slow PC I use "Medium damage" as max, unless the map/battle is very small.

see above

To map designers: If your map doesn't use any "special setup zones", ie your setup zone looks like a normal QB one (a straight zone at the edge of the map), you can do just one map for all battle types. ...you can save yourself (or Biltong?) alot of work.

Originally I thought we could do that: 1 map for all battle types, but I soon realized that won't work. Once you've played one (say: Axis Attack) you can't play any of the other Axis battle types or the ME since the objectives and the optimum approach route remains the same. Even if the QB is left to 'randomly' assign this, most of the time you will still be stuck with the same approach route.

The QB setup zones are also bloody boring (and unrealistic).

That's why we change the setup zones and objectives (as well as some terrain features etc) for each map. Effectively creating new 'battle terrain' for each one.

A lot of work, but what can I say: "Only the Best for BCR players"

[ February 02, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

[Seahawk-vfa201]

I have just discovered and read the thread (not in its entirey though), got the PDF version of the rules (vs 1.6) (is Excell striclty necessary? I might get a copy from work)

I have seen that there is a Player Guide in the cooking and that Rulse vs 2.0 are almost ready to be released.

All this seems GRANDIOSE!! and I am eager to give it a try (knowing already that I'll be hooked!)

Any hint or advice in order to kick it off?

Please, also reply via email: seahawk-vfa201@wanadoo.fr

Thanks a lot: it should be part of CMBB!!!!