23-10-2000 09:41									#1
	Second Front: The Next Generation Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

This is a continuation of the previous thread to discuss Second Front.

I am still looking for a good idea for the new unit in the next version. Canadian Infantry is the one I like the best so far, how about you? I would give them a Brengun and capabilities similar to the American BAR Infantry so they complement the basic British troopers.

The new version is seriously more difficult than the first! Not to discourage you, but this change in the Kriegsmarine role is very tough to counter. The bunkers "fight back" unlike those sitting ducks in the first version. The minefield East of Omaha blocks access to Port-en-Bessin and forces the Americans to land right in the middle of the 352nd Infantry... It's been a massive bloodbath. The British are still relatively successful and Utah Beach becomes the better choice for the US forces when the Omaha landings fail. Pointe du Hoc is now a real challenge because every time you empty out the bunker it seems like more troops pull into it from the rear.

The first new unit I made is a 20mm Flakvierling stationary air defense battery that protects all the Kriegsmarine bunkers against air attack. It is just tough enough to dispatch allied planes and requires the use of combat engineers to take them out.

The bunkers are nameless size 1 cities protected by air defenses and tank defenses with no improvements... Of course I made them look like the 210mm batteries (And can even make them point in different directions by adjusting their size/ciy walls) The AI seems much more eager to defend such a position than the old unit style bunker. "Capturing" it result in the same since it is size 1 it dissappears and provides no defensive value. Only Pointe du Hoc is size 2 because it requires an actual capture to trigger the technology.

By 2PM on D-Day:

My last 6 airborne hold Ste Mere Eglise with the help of 6 Sherman tanks that rolled up from La Madeleine. British hold Langrune, Lion-sur-Mer and Le Hamel. The 210mm battery West of Arromanches is the only one of the 6 new type of City-Bunkers in the landing zone that was destroyed. The British are surrounding Arromanches for the kill.

On Omaha the Americans are "pinned" on the Beach... The only hopeful sign is that they have finally reached the fortification West of Port-en-Bessin and have cut the coastal road to German traffic. But about 30-40 units have been wiped including all DD tanks, Rangers and Engineers. My old favorite landing spot on Pointe du Hoc actually turned into an American route as the defenders inside the Bunker kept machine-gunning all my engineers and rangers... One time a stack of 11 went up in smoke!

Hope to have the revised version out before too long!

	23-10-2000 12:17									#2
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Nemo, does the word "sadism" mean anything to you?

	23-10-2000 17:48									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

For the new unit, how about Bren Gun Carriers--a mobile infantry unit for the British? You could use the slot for landing craft--I had dozens of von Schliebens hugging the coast.

I restarted and I'm just started on Part IV, using the list of trigger cities you posted as a roadmap. So far I've managed to capture all of the objectives for each part (I'm still working on Caen.

The Carpiquet AF needs a bunker--it was undefended.

Part IV should include the event for the capture of the Cherbourg AF.

	23-10-2000 20:54									#4
	Suffering from ads?

Damn, Nemo...even harder! You, my friend are a very sick man. I will hold you personally responsible for the downfall of my college education I'm going to give SF another go, this time with a lot of reading material to get past the beaches. That's been my only problem so far...waves and waves getting caught up. Personally, I don't thin SFI was too easy, but others seem to be keeping up a good pace. Has anyone finished this one yet? Keep up ther great work Nemo!

------------------
I am the Ukrainian Anti-Pope!
Großdeutschland!

	23-10-2000 23:30									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Harder!!!!!,

Thats it I surender

------------------
Windows 98 (windoze) a 32 bit extention of a 16 bit graphical shell for an 8 bit operating system, origalanly coded for a 4 bit processor by a 2 bit company who can't stand one bit of competition!

	23-10-2000 23:32									#6
	Increase the size of your Attachments

That is certainly more difficult! Not only do you need to kill the battery, but also you need to eliminate the machine guns so that you don't get killed from counter attack. To be absolutely safe, you need to destroy the city because the city may rush buy a unit to kill your engineers. Besides, you may run out of assaulting units for the turn since there are those shells in the city which will not be gone with the battery.

Captain Nemo: please release the new version soon. That will be a good challenge for me. Did you always put the V-1s in the same city? I can take that city but I'm not sure if it worths the effort. In the next verion maybe you should put a mine inside the city to protect it .

There is a way to check the German inventory in the MPE version. From the menu choose 'join a hotseat game' and you'll find out how many units the German civs have. Then click 'cancel' to come back to the game. From this I found out that in part I German civs do not get much help. The first turn the German has 500 some units then in the second turn moves up to 600+. I think this is due to that turn 1 information was out of date and on turn 2 the computer updates the information. Afterwards I killed tons of German units, and the numbers of German units dropped almost accordingly. Seems Captain Nemo gives the German a handful of units per turn but not from the unitkilled events.

This is totally changed in part II. I must restart the game! If I had known that I would try to kill as many German units as I can in part I.

	23-10-2000 23:50									#7
	Support Apolyton

Nemo, Add the ME-192 ( i think that's the name, forgot it) That's the German Jet Fighter, It didn't play a role in the invasion but after D-Day it fought in the skies above France. Also i'm not sure that u said this.
The Americans used "Bangelors" alot in the Invasion. They use these 'Pipe Explosives' to break through bunkers and Fortifications on the beaches.
All it is, is a long pipe, maybe 9 feet long filled with explosives with fuse at one end. They lit it and pushed it where it needed to be. Maybe u could make a Bangelor Unit. Pretty much an American unit that is a demolition squad.
Hey Nemo, at Civfanatics.com we had some good idea's and response to your Second Front go there and read it.

	24-10-2000 01:10									#8
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Forcing the landing at Omaha will be a great addition. Not having a fortress position to land in will bring back the notion of attacking across a wide front to try to disperse stacked units.

Ideas:

Perhaps switching the P47s and Typhoons with the Marauders for DDay availability would be welcome and reflect the limited role of the tank busters on that first day. More power but fewer numbers would require careful target selection - if the Marauders had a 50/50 chance to take out the fixed emplacements then you would have to decide between taking the risk of losing a powerful plane early vs the benefit of having it succeed.

Maybe reduce the power of the shore shells, but increase their number to reflect the ability of the Navy to close with the shore and save the Omaha beach landings with out losing ships of the line. Also maybe make the destroyers and crusiers sub and shell configured like the Battleships. Giving the battleships the 210mm shells (longer range, 8?) and the crusier/destroyers the smaller shells could be interesting. I would like to see the impact of having the shelling (and other attacks too) injure units instead of wiping them out, so you are forced to coordinate attacks on strongpoints with various semi-depleated units.

I was surprised to take out a command post and not get anything for it (that I noticed) any possibilities there?

There seemed to be quite a few German armor units that quickly closed with the beaches - perhaps their movement could be reduced in the first rules.txt to reflect their slow deployment especially if the landings are significantly more difficult.

Looking forward to v2 - the tougher it is, the better it replays!

Great job so far.

	24-10-2000 03:59									#9
	Full PM-box? Change here!

French resistance units should be weak, but plentiful and good on rough terrain. They should be gained every turn. This way, you can accurtely portray them, stalling the Germans.

Oh and you should give the beach mines the x2 vs Air flag if it doesn't already have it, and make it so that planes can't take out the mines (very unhistorical, but helpful...)

------------------
Webmaster of Shadowstrike's Civilization II Site
Emperor of The Gamer's Abode Forums

	24-10-2000 08:37									#10
	Inflate your Upload Space

What I drew is a Canadian Infantry with a Bren Gun... It's not final but it adds to the British punch. The Bren Gun Carrier is also a good idea and certainly was an extensively used British vehicle, but very small and not really so proficient at anything except haunling 17 pdrs and their crew?
The mines... If they can defend against air units then everybody will complain about losing planes that run into them by mistake... I wish that air units and ground units could "Coexist" in the same slot and that there were rules preventing unit A from attacking unit B. Civ 2 is not really designed to be a tactical wargame... But this is not too bad?

	24-10-2000 09:04									#11
	Remove this text

Unit Ideas:

M7 105mm gun carrier
M8 Light armored Car
(Canada) S.P.25-pr Sexton (like M7)
M1A2 Abrams (Hey, can you PROVE they weren't in the D-DAY landings!?!?!?)

	25-10-2000 01:07									#12
	Suffering from ads?

Unit: How about Nebelwerfer 105mm mortar batteries to help the Germans out on the beaches. You could make two shells - one for 155mm shore guns and Battleships with a range of 6ish and a big A & FP, and a smaller shell for destroyers/cruisers & Nebelwerfer that had a range of 3 or 4 and a low cost so they would pin the Inf on the beaches and smack Higgins boats on the shore. If they were weak enough to just wound units severely you would have that Omaha scene of trapped injured infantry needing to close the range somehow to the beach exits unable to be reinforced since that would just stack them up.

Plus it sounds like the Nazis will need some more help in the new version.

	25-10-2000 04:07									#13
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

While your at it Darth, throw in a dozen Challenger IIIs

That's a good point Nemo... I just thought that it was strage that I was dismantling an minefiled at sea with Mustangs...

------------------
Webmaster of Shadowstrike's Civilization II Site
Emperor of The Gamer's Abode Forums

	25-10-2000 08:49									#14
	Put an end to popups!

Yes, the mines are not really working once you figure out how to dismantle them with aircraft... How about making them really strong, impossible to destroy AND visible. Basically they WILL kill X-ships but you can try to outrun them which will disrupt the landings extensively. Maybe make 10-12 of them only?

The M-7 is already in the scenario... Later on there is also an M40 and an M-18 (My favorite US armored vehicle). Another plane might be good like a rocket armed Typhoon a Lancaster or a P-38?. The Me262 were not in Normandy at all. They really only saw action in 1945 over Germany.

I have tried to keep the units in Normandy strictly historical and some of the later German surprises like Tiger II and JagdPanthers were truly used in Normandy for the first time, albeit in very small numbers.

The opportunity for adding more units only develops after D-Day as every slot is used up on D-Day. Therefore Nebelwerfers and the like will not be possible until part 3 or 4.

I have restructured the game to claim back some of the "poorly" used slots later on like the multiple German infantry and the shells. I was even thinking of reusing the Battleship after part IV as there is almost no coastal warfare after that time... Does anyone know of any German Naval action in the Channel during the Battle for Normandy? Would it be appropriate to have a few E-Boats or Subs to harass the Channel convoys later in the game?
[This message has been edited by Captain Nemo (edited October 24, 2000).]

	25-10-2000 10:17									#15
	Inflate your Upload Space

Nemo... howabout this suggestion?

Giving mines zero movement points doesn't work because the naval wonder let's them move anyway, so why not give the mines zero attack value, while still making them invisible? Then the only ships that crash will be the ones that run into them.

------------------
The strategically impaired,
-Cal

	25-10-2000 17:55									#17
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I think the mines work fine. Sure, after you play the first part a few times you know where most of them are and can sic your planes on them, but I always seem to miss one or two and send a LC of engineers into them at full speed.

If you want to toughen things up, keep mines the way they are but lower the mp of US aircraft during the first event part to keep them off of the coast and barely out of range of the mines on the first turn. That way the LCs will still have to make their way through the mines on the first turn and the AF will have to choose between land targets or hunting down mines on the second turn--it is this way already in the British sector.

	25-10-2000 22:24									#18
	Suffering from ads?

*I think some (half) of the mines actually belong to the Kreigmarine civ so they don't get the move bonus.

There were two line ship lost on DDay.

The Norwegian destroyer Svenner was the closest ship to Le Havre. Half a dozen Eboats raced in and torped it - the Svenner broke in half and folded. The HMS Warspite counterfired as the Es released their torps and sank one while the rest fled back to Le Havre. The USS Corry, a destroyer, hit a mine at 0640, while trying to avoid shore gun fire and sank. There were no Uboat sorties - because of Allied air superiority. (all per Ambrose)

Using the Goto function with aircraft and landing craft significantly reduced my mine losses - to just a handful of units.

Maybe the mines could have a small attack value and a large defensive value. If they had a smaller chance of wiping out all of the landing craft, and were difficult for the Airforce to clean-up then maybe that would force us to take our chances with troop losses. Maybe a destroyed after attacking flag. If they had the 2x air, but were slightly weaker than the P51, you would not want to run the risk of severely wounding your planes vs maybe losing a Higgins boat. Say perhaps 1a6d 2h1f with the 2x air flag. Destroyers & Crusiers could take them out offensively, but that would leave them vulnerable to the shore guns. If they had those stats, I would take out a couple with P47s on turn one, sacrafice a destroyer or two to clear a lane and take my chances with the rest. If placed correctly this might also force the player to land infantry or risk losing all units if the Higgins gets sunk.

A combination of this sort of mine with one set of shore shells that were weak, low cost and shorter ranged - provides an interesting dilema. Weaker shells that could wound the landing parties but sink Higgins boats (more expensive to attract hits) would make the player choose between staying away from the short range guns, but in range of the mines, or getting the hell off the boats and land at the beaches and take the chance that some infantry will survive. A slightly higher cost Higgins boat to attract some shore guns would also weaken a Higgins escort formation from protecting the LCTs.
[This message has been edited by Sten Sture (edited October 25, 2000).]

	26-10-2000 08:43									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

I tested the visible mines with 1m,20a,80d,5f,5h... Only made 18 of them all Kreigsmarine to make sure they would only move 1. Since they are visible and only move 1 you can always avoid them but they chase your ships all over the coast and disrupt the protective formations and "lines" of LCVPs. They are destroyed after attack so the most damage they can cause is 18 attacks... they are disbanded by the end of D-Day but I haven't seen if that works (Made them obsolete with Phi tech on turn 8). The other way is to tie them to city/bunkers on the shore so they all get canned as the Allies destroy the shore batteries.

This new version seems a lot more difficult than the last go around. Rangers, Commandos and Airborne are VERY useful in breaking into the beaches but I am not sure I can get through D-Day myself... May need Xin Yu's expertise here... In two attempts I still am hopelessly stuck fighting for those nasty bunkers and unable to secure a continuous beach... Omaha is still a bloodbath and can't easily be bypassed as in the last version. Very historical in that regard. I am not trying to make this impossible, just making sure players really feel great once they kick the AI's butt!

	27-10-2000 02:59									#20
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

This may be a bit late, but I have an idea with the mines. Basically, give them to the Kriegsmarine, and make them allied to the Air Force. Then, take away the Kreigsmarine's cities from the beachheads.

This prevents:

a) Aircraft from destroying the mines
b) Aircraft attacking fortified positions

Just my two cents...


------------------
Webmaster of Shadowstrike's Civilization II Site
Emperor of The Gamer's Abode Forums