RetLT Scenario issues

[DRG]

Entirely different code. There is no black nation flag button. The V hex and ID tags are from a different series. This is SOP for SP for decades.

Player one is the default and that is the British side. Once you get past the start screen it will all seem perfectly normal

[RetLT]

The text implies that the player should play the USMC side but does not specifically state it and the default for the human player is Japan.

The #2 unit in formations B-O, which includes Rifle Squads, Paras, and raiders, is missing the weapon in the 4th slot. I would assume this was intended but the unit is shown as having shots for the 4th weapon slot.

The same goes for the Engineers in formations T,U, V, and AK. The 0 unit is missing its 4th weapon and the others are missing their 3rd and 4th weapons.

Really doesn't matter much since it is pretty easy to get a DV as the USMC.

[DRG]

Well.......

...It is estimated there are between three to four thousand Japanese infantry advancing on your position. You are ordered to hold until relieved.

......seems clear (to me) that this is to be played from the USMC but yes I agree having the game start with the Japanese as the Human player is a bit odd and IIRC this had been brought up WAY in the past but I will look into it again.

Since it's "pretty easy to get a DV as the USMC"....MAYBE it might be better played as the Japanese? ( you have said you are looking for things to do...... )

As for the "missing weapons" methinks you are looking too hard to find fault.( yes, I know ...... Covid quarantines and all that goes with it) There is NO weapon and NO ammo the fact it shows shots is a "bug" so small as to be nearly invisible. It does look like the scenario designer removed a weapon and the ammo it used but I suspect the "Shots" code is showing the original units 4 weapons shots means nothing to gameplay but this scenario probably started being built in the year 2000. (see below)

From what I can see nearly all of the regular USMC squads in that scenario came from the same OOB unit and in the scenario some have a fourth weapon and some don't and sometimes that fourth weapon is a sniper rifle and sometimes it's a SMG. The game allows these alterations to be made and scenario designers tended to do the more back in "the old days".........AS WELL that unit ( 39 ) has been changed since the scenario was built... it still has the same first three weapons but the fourth is a Rifle grenade and now it's availability ends 9 months before this battle was fought so the "problem" here is very, very minor..... the game is showing shots for weapons and ammo that don't exist in that scenario and the sum effect on gameplay is zero.

And further to this..... this is a scenario that goes back to the DOS days. The scenario text has been unchanged since Jan 21/2001.....Twenty years ago almost to the day... so it was release either for DOS v4 or v5 as both upgrades were released in 2001. the oldest OOB I can view with the current MOBHack is the last version of DOS --V7 and in that OOB the last date that unit used in that scenario is 9/41.... a full year before this battle is fought and at some point that availability was pushed to the end of 1941 so it MAY have been available when this scenario was built OR the guy who built it could have set the date for purchase to 9/41..... bought the units then adjusted the battle date to 9/42 just to get a basic unit armed the way he wanted and then he removed and changed weapons. But also this means it had to be updated with a long lost conversion program when we converted the game to Windows in 2006 so the fact it even exists to be played and critiqued is a miracle ( Don Lazov can tell you all about the joys of trying to resurrect old DOS scenarios.....) and FYI the last TXT file in the game for a scenario that would have been built for a DOS release scenario then converted to run with the Windows version is 308 so expect to find little oddities like these.. some might be fixable...some may be just relics that cannot.

And further to the further, yes it is odd that the game starts with the Japanese as the human player but it *may* have been originally designed to be played that way ( twenty + years ago )


EDIT....That scenario has now be set up to start with USMC as the Human player

[RetLT]

I played as Japan and I now think that this is what was the side intended for the human player. The text doesn't match though.

It is much more of a challenge and is winnable. I managed to take all but one of the v hexes and crushed the defenders. I took the v hexes on the airfield on the last turn so time is tight.

The trick is to use concentrated Danger Close artillery support (2-3 hexes in front of your own troops) followed by a massed thrust on an narrow front near the 1st hill. The reserve troops then widen and hold the gap while the others move on the airfield.

I would consider adding a text for a Japanese player and say that the scenario is playable from both sides.

[DRG]

I have added txt to the write up making those suggestions but I think I will leave it as I have changed it to start with USMC human now as that is the way the text was written way back when.

"a challenge and is winnable" is a good thing in a scenario and it's good to have one that can be played by novices and experienced players depending on the side picked.

Thank you for trying it that way. You should keep a "rating record" of the ones you have played. We have provided a basic list of beginner scenarios and although every player has different skill levels we have never had " reviews " unless they are WIP feedback. This is partly why we added the SQL function to Scenhack so players can check which might be the long ones and the short ones but we also understand that writing an SQL to extract the type of info you might be looking for isn't for everyone.

[RetLT]

Originally Posted by DRG

You should keep a "rating record" of the ones you have played.

Can do.

What criteria would you like to see the scenarios rated on?

I can think of:

1. Difficulty (Beginner/experienced/expert or easy/average/difficult)
2. Length (short/medium/long/very long)
This could have predetermined parameters in turns for each rating.
3. Size (small/medium/large/very large)

Could these ratings be made searchable if we standardized them?


Perhaps we should set up a sub forum for this topic so we can have multiple players work their way through the scenarios.

[DRG]

I was thinking more general impressions as to if it's easy or difficult or in between. ScenHack allows players to check for scenario length using Sort which does not require writing an SQL to find that info but including its length in a "review" would be easy enough. Size IS something that would be informative and that does not mean number of turns although that can be an indicator of size. In this case I refer to the number of units.....some players love the big monsters but not everyone does and when you have an hour to spare you don't want to start something that's going to take days to play.

I would say if you were interested in starting something like that a new thread on this subforum would be all that's needed.

An easily winnable scenario might be a bore for an experienced player but just what a newbie needs to know ( that he's not likey to have his butt handed to him by the AI )..... and one that plays good from both sides is good info too. I don't expect anyone to play both sides but if it happens it's worth noting and if it plays interestingly from both sides that's a potential PMEM scenario.

Scenario 39 might be a good one to PBEM if the experienced player takes Japan and the less experienced player takes USMC. As you said it was an easy win from the USMC POV but a challenge as the Japanese.

The reason people still play SP after a quarter-century is because of things like that

[wulfir]

I reworked the map and scenario for 199.

Instead of a narrow focus on the hills themselves I opted to make the scen represent the roughly three days the II Battalion/JR13 fought in this location.

This setup gives the player a few choices from the get go, which is something I like.

Some of the Bn is in position far forward (as was the case historically) so the player can either reinforce this area with the rest of the force and attempt to hold here - historically the order was to hold as far forward as possible and means a shot at keeping all VHs.

However, the player can also fall back towards the hills where the line can be made shorter, and there is less open terrain.

(The player could even fall back behind the anti-tank obstacles of the VKT line but might be hard pressed to regain the Victory Hexes if doing so before the game ends.)

I opted to not make the forest too dense with trees as I think this makes for a better game. Historically the Russians made use of AT-guns firing but it would be difficult for the AI to handle I replaced them with something else...

[RetLT]

Can you repost using another file extension? My computer will not open .rar files.

[Mobhack]

search for winrar, its a free utility to deal with rar files. Or 7zip, which deals with most (including zip, 7z, rar, tar gzip etc).