15-05-2000 01:16									#31
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Actually, Veda, I bow in homage to your Red Front exploits. You are a far superior player to get to Berlin by August of 1944. I was on a relatively easy level b/c 1.3 just scared the hell out of me - but never would have gotten there without your advice on this forum. I stand in wondrance! It is an honor to be chatting about Red Front with you.

Come to think if it, I could have done a better job at building cities and industry more efficiently, but live and learn. Building industry is just the coolest! Thanks to advice on this forum, Kirov had like a 7 population and a 131 production. Some rural locations near the Urals make good aircraft factory points, as they're just to damned far from everything to make roads worth it. Tula, Perekop, Kerch, somewhere up north, and that city near Stalingrad were all destroyed.

Other scattered thoughts: Operation Blau was just a catastrophe for the Germans as I defended Vorenzh heavily and they lost about 13 Tigers. I slaughtered the "Caucasus Invasion" as well after rush-building some tank hunters (they look bad-ass in winter whites!). I transferred the bunkers into Leningrad and it did wonders for defense.

Per your counsel, in winter '41 I didn't fight back to retake cities, but just to kill Germans. I developed the T-34/85 by that time, so I had lots of x-mas gifts for the invaders. The first liberated city was Kaluga in August '42. In the "clean-up" after Stalingrad, I killed like 47 units in one stack. There were deadly fights between Siberian infantry and the SS in the woods around Moscow in the winter months. Even lost Sevastopol in late '41... but recaptured it via freigher from the Caucasus in '44. I build airfields in the Caucasus and far north to get the convoys south in a hurry.

I didn't kill the Karls and they crept deep into my territory. The Leningrad one actually captured Yakutsk! But I retook it later with air power and the leftover partisans. The event was actually a blessing in disguise as it forced me to build up my air force. The other Karl got into the Caucacus, but by the time I built bombers to kill it, there was no longer a unit space so it turned into a Panzerfaust. Same with the one up north. Talk about a prince into a frog! Nice trick about rush-building feeble Red Army units first, then rush-buying your Katyushas!

In winter of 44-45, I failed in February to take Berlin but redoubled my efforts in May and succeeded. Tons of speed-built Katyushas did the trick. That winter, except for the ATV Red Guards, I had a beast of a time getting over the Carpathians, but broke through in May.

Actually, I was into Lodz -- sans Kiev -- by like June '44, just a stone's throw away from the Fuhrer's bunker. However, I decided to liberate the Soviet Union first before moving onto Germany itself. I decided Stalin would have done it that way --liberation of the treasured Rodina before occupying the soil of the "Hitlerites." It resulted that September '44 saw a massive "noose" operations against the Germans in the Ukraine from all four directions. Took like five cities that turn -- really threw down the hammer. After I took back the Wheatfields wonder, I made tons of money selling off all grain elevators.

On the ruins: That's a great explanation -- however, there should be a note to that extent in the ReadMe file. Then I wouldn't make "ridiculous" statements...

Loading: I seem to have trouble with this. When I run the "batch" program, I have to do it twice. After the first time, it says "events file not found." So I try again, and this time it says "events header not found." This time, the events generally work. Hmm. The mysteries of MS DOS.

[*]Also, another suggestion. Some units are listed in the civclopedia as "zero" movement in winter, but still seem to move. Hmmm... is this just me or is there something wrong here?

Really, you were a big help. Can I join your army?


[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited May 14, 2000).]

	15-05-2000 02:47									#32
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Here are a few answers:

The ruins are certainly a trouble spot... I am thinking of making them Swedish to prevent the Germans from attacking them... That would mean that the Soviets would have to contend with them and get around them when attacking cities. There is one solution which isn't perfect but I could have a specific ressource graphic looking like rubble and only "bomb" special resource spots.

On the pontoon bridge: the terrain transform command used to convert the plain terrain back into the river Volga kills all units on the square in the FW version but leaves them hanging over the water in MPG... Civ II bug.

Yes, the text says that the partisans are converted and you do get bonus Red Guards in Minsk for the remainder of that season. I can't take away the partisans appearing on capture of a city because that's technology driven. I will look into the events and see if I still give you partisans by events which should not happen. I could certainly use a few extra unit spots... How about using the Partisan spot for special assault artillery that can take out those German city rubble units? Actually the rubble could be German units with low stats... They are mostly there for show anyway.


The Germans developed Volksturm several times, when they only needed to once. Hmmm... This seems like a correctable issue with the events file.

That one can't be corrected...I want to make sure that they get Volksturm as the Soviets approach Berlin so every city on the East side of Berlin is "rigged" to trigger Volkssturm... If I was sure of which route the Human would take I could cut it down but otherwise you get it each time... I can eliminate repeat of the main text (JustOnce), but not of the technology announcement

Otherwise, Red Front 1.4 ROCKED!

Thanks... 1.941 is on the operating table right NOW... if 1.4 was a 6.0 then 1.941 will be the Big One (California readers will understand)

The MAP is the biggest change...Completely new with many new cities and a very different shape. The ressource management of the Urals will be much more extensive with lots of great terrain to develop... The ressources are actually placed accurately where they occurred... Also the cities are placed accurately and reflect true 1941 population levels... You will be surprised at how small Stalingrad actually was. Two new types of terrain replace Oil Fields and Bereza and allowed Harlan Thompson, who is the originator of all the map work to accurately place the main production areas in the Soviet Union as well as the future Ural development pockets.

More to come later...

	15-05-2000 05:39									#33
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

You could always place the Volksturm in the Partisans unit slot. Then give the Germans the proper techs to trigger these units when the first German city is captured. The tech(s) will have to be renamed in the rules.txt file to something suitable for German resistance.

You can then dispose of Soviet Partisans which formerly occupied that units slot by giving them a tech which causes the armaments upgrade to convert Soviet Partisans to Red Guard sometime before the Russians could reach Germany. Since by this time the Soviets are only reconquering cities and they will not be getting any new Partisans anyway.

	15-05-2000 09:20									#34
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Absolutely correct... Just a little worried about getting Soviet Volkssturm if by any chance the Germans get a hold of a badly defended Soviet city. The upgrade will work, however new partisans will appear if cities are conquered... I think I should just change the graphic and name of the Partisans to Red Guards. That would be the end of it. The Volkssturm are event-created in great numbers anyway, but at that late stage not much matters anymore... When the Soviet player gets to the gates of Berlin I can't imagine anything turning the tide... It's a turkey-shoot now.
Interesting that this is the time when the Germans truly have their best weapons... The early threat is executed with relatively poor units.

The new version will feature much longer research paths and include some units not seen in 1.4. Lots of swapping and optimizing to do this.

	15-05-2000 10:54									#35
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

[*]One more piece of strategy. I found that if you build up the Perm area and surrounding cities, you can then get units quickly to Gorkiy by freighter via that river (whatever it's called). If you have airfields from Gorkiy to Moscow, it really speeds up getting units to the front.

Nemo-

From first impressions, I like the Swedish ruins idea. As far as heavy-duty assault artillery, well, I wonder how "realistic" it would be if you had big guns just taking huge piles of rubble. Would that make ruins passable? Or would it just worsen the situation. Hmmm...

Are you considering Soviet paratroops as mentioned above?

I wanted to let you know that I sincerely appreciate the time and energy you must have devoted to this project (I sent you a long e-mail attachment after Red Front 1.3 to the same effect).

Keep up the good work.
[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited May 15, 2000).]

	15-05-2000 16:02									#36
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

You could give all soviet units the IZOC ability in 1944?

This would allow them to bypass the rubble but not go through it.
[This message has been edited by DarthVeda (edited May 15, 2000).]

	16-05-2000 09:36									#37
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I blew up my PC last week, and I may have lost my save games... I have sent it to Lubyanka Prison to be re-educated.

One thing I would like to see in v1.941 is fewer city improvements that can be sold to finance rush building units. I think I was selling off 3,000,000 rubles worth of city improvements every turn during 1941. I would rather have some Industry squares developed in the Urals and Aral Sea area than have Steel Mills and Power Plants. Part of the reason is just the amount of time that is taken up by selling something in every city, and then incrementally rush building units. A size 4 city with a 30 shield production but nothing to sell forces me to make a difficult choice about when and what to construct, and takes away the all scientist research option.

Also maybe a few extra barbed wire sections in lieu of the fortified positions.


----------
I think I'll get a laptop with a couple of extra battery packs so if we do get "the Big One" I can still run RedFront while I'm waiting for the ruble square that was my house to get put back together.

	21-05-2000 19:07									#38
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Two more ideas that would make this scenario a bit better, IMHO, would be the following:

1) Ability to make food trade routes. Remote Novyy Port gives food supplies to even more remote Vorkuta (sp?), and Krakow has a food connection to somewhere else in Poland. Given that there are already convoys, is there any way that you could created additional food trade routes so that someplace like Perm, for example, could supply food to Omsk or Zlatust so that the mountain-surrounded cities don't starve as much (and hence lose production) in the winter? Maybe there could be more such routes at the outset.

2) The people graphics have all men and no women. It might be neater if this were rectified for better gender representation. Lots of babushkas, in their own way, contributed to the war effort.

Just another $.02



[This message has been edited by Sortub (edited May 21, 2000).]