BETA: PLEI ME version1.0

[Pyros]

(This has been designed with WinSPMBT version2.0)

This is the first sample of the new model.
It is very important to discuss this model as much as possible because this is where we start.

After the playtest we will analyze the scenarios in the editor in order to further discuss the various techniques.

In the next days I will comment the scenario of the sample campaign in order to explain you what is going on (scenario text missing).

Just a few words:

First scenario: In this 1-turn scenario you will make the choice between the support that you wish to have during the missions of this chapter (just select one of the 2 victory locations)

earlier(in entrance turn) "light" regimental support
more 105mm+, average 155mm+, few air assets

or

later "specialized" divisional support
average 105mm+, average 155mm+, average air assets, few heavy arty.


Secondary Mission:
2 roads of approach:

The upper will be flanked attacked by upper edge from VC troops; you must make haste in order to avoid being trapped and you must protect your transport wagons.

The lower is free but there is a reinforced NVA company that is following you, so you must make haste to the village and there you should make a defensive line along to the river in order to defend against the NVA company.
The village is an Vietcong base of operation and you will be eventually attacked by VC light troops who are hiding inside hiding pits.

BONUS OBJECTIVE:
The NVA camp of operations (just right of the village) is unprepared for your presence because every available force has been commited for the attack of the Plei Ne SP camp.
The only units left are the NVA regimental artyllery and some AA assets. Also the ammo of the enemy arty is packed and it will require time in order to become available (after turn20).
The NVA HQ has dispatched as reinforcements 1 company from upper-right direction of approach (turn30+) and one company from the right direction turn30+), so if you wish to exploit the opportunity to destroy the NVA regimental arty you must get inside the camp, destroy every arty and hold the VP locations up to the end (from the counter attack of the approaching NVA companies); in other words... their fort will become your fort.

How the result will determine your evolution in the primary mission the defense of the SP camp of Plei Me:

2 possible roads;

1. If you achieve DECISIVE victory (only if you control the VP of the camp and 2 of the others) you will play the primary mission without the presence of the NVA regimental support elements, BUT you will start your deployment at the axis-X line of 4 *** this is important!

2. If you achieve anything else (except decisive loss) you will play the primary facing the NVA regimental arty, BUT you will start your deployment the axis-X line of 20 *** 16 hexes ahead from the other clone of primary mission.

What means the above:

In the first case you will face less NVA artillery (-6 mortars), and in the second case you will arrive in the besieged camp 2 turns earlier.

The choice is yours!!!
Plan your strategy because if you wish to destroy the enemy arty park, then it may be better if you select the fast response "Regimental" support assets!!!

***Important the secondary mission is calibrated and you will never play the same game twice; the low probability entry point makes this game virtual a different game each time you re-play it.
***Try to start the game multiple times; by selecting different support assets.
***Make saves 2-3 turns before ending (up to the last moment, don't contest the VP of the camp, in order to have the choice of the victory level); this way you may play the primary mission from the two perspectives.

More info will follow.
The stage of the secondary mission is BETA and the stage of the primary mission is ALPHA.

cheers,
Pyros

[wulfir]

Trying it out now...

[Double_Deuce]

I'm playing it now as well.

[narwan]

I've started up the scenario's to check it out. I did my best to find a way to make the first scenario act other than its supposed too, (in other words trying to mess it up) but no luck. Which is good news.
One question on it though, if you go for neither VH you get a defeat, but this gets you the same reinforcement set-up as for a marginal victory. Perhaps it's an idea to use this as a third option, for example for experienced players who want to make things harder (give them less reinforcements for the follow-up scenario). That would increase replayability to some degree.

As to the battle proper, I only played about five turns sofar but I do have some questions/remarks.

It starts with the mortars opening up in the pregame artillery segment; those are VC mortars right? Why are they firing? Doesn't seem to make much sense. They're shooting at bridges which are in their own hands (flags are theirs).

[Pyros]

Hi Remco,

If you decisively lose this secondary mission you won't be able to play the primary mission and you will be redirected to the after-primary link where you will get the same replacement points as if you have played the primary.
Why this happens?
The answer is simple.
If someone lose the secondary with a Decisive Loss then either his performance was terrible (which means that he lost many of his units) or he did this on purpose in order to lose very few of his unit (simply never engaged in the combat; he won't score anything for the primary). Either way he shouldn't be allowed to proceed to the primary with such a performance (better thing to replay the mission).

Concerning the artillery:

I had 3 choices:

1. make use of half ammo NVA mortars which will give to AI side the ability to inflict many casualties on player's army, which is a bad thing...(he will have to play the primary mission without taking replacements).

2. make use of NVA mortars with 8-10 ammo which gives to the AI 2-3 shots against the player (still will inflict him at least 10-15 casualties)

3. make use of what I did. The ammo capacity of the mortars is 5 ammo which are spent on turn 0 (suppose that the NVA try to demolish the bridge...in order to prevent the US advance). In reality the mortars will have for the rest of the game a 0/5 ammo. But from turn 20 next to each mortar (6 entrenched NVA mortars) an ammo depot will arrived as reinforcement (which means that the ammo from 0/5 will be from now on 5/5).
What this means?
From turn21 (if the player hasn't already destroyed the mortars) there will be 6 NVA mortars that will attack the player (up to the end of the game). And believe me this is a very big firepower. The logic of this technique is to force the player to take out/disable the mortars and the ammo depots. For this task he will have 20 turns wich give him a primary objective. This also will force him to make decisions concerning the allocation of his support assets (he must divide them).

The objectives on this mission are:
A. move quickly through UPPER corridor one in order to avoid being caught in VC ambushes (VC units are coming from the north direction south)
B. The force from the UPPER corridor should encircle the NVA camp, assist to the destruction of the NVA mortars and taking positions for the NVA counter-attack at turn 30 from 2 directions W & NW
C. The other task group (LOWER CORRIDOR) will have 3 objectives:
C1. move to the village and establish a line of defense along the river in order to reppel the NVA Co that is coming after this task force (first elements of it should attack the village at turn15).
C2. elements (scouts) of the lower task force should engage (faster approach)the NVA camp and start the destruction of the mortars
C3. elements of the lower task force will have to create strong points in order to defend against the VC units that will come out from their hiding pits from inside the VC village (turn 15-). The player will be able to see this hiding pits from turn7 but the VC will arrive on the from turn 12-15 at a probability 10%. In the first design these VC units came into the game as passengers inside the hiding pits with an entry point of 7 and probability of 10%. But this method created a BUG with the displayed kills of the HQ, so I had to bring (as reinforcements) separately the pits and the VC units (the pits are there to alarm the player).

NOTE: The player may destroy the mortars/ammo depot without engaging them with infantry; only with the use of artillery but this will not grant him a decisive victory because he will not contest the VP locations.
NOTE: The player should try to avoid casualties as this is the secondary mission and he will also have to play the primary without any replacements.
NOTE: A decisive loss in the primary will give a bonus mission to the player with extra replacements; while on the other hand a decisive victory on the primary mission will force the player to play a penalty mission (ambush) with no additional replacement points.
NOTE: The AUX SV allies are the "meat" for the player since these units should be used as the "bullet eaters".

cheers,
Pyros

[Pyros]

Few words about arty mechanism:

The new arty routines include AI arty mission on any occupation of VP hex.

What does this mean in the secondary mission?

The moment your first elements (scouts) will cross the lower bridge you will trigger the AI arty response. Then after 2-3 turns you will receive 3-4 NVA mortar arty strikes at a concentration of units that move at the highest speed in clear terrain (convoy passing through the bridge). This will lead to a massacre.

One method of avoiding this, is what I did and another one would be to pre-assigned all the mortars to hit locations (anticipate player moves) at turns 10, 11, 12, etc (in order to avoid the bridge massacre).

Anyway, this may be fixed in the final revision.

Cheers,
Pyros

[narwan]

Pyros said:
Hi Remco,

If you decisively lose this secondary mission you won't be able to play the primary mission and you will be redirected to the after-primary link where you will get the same replacement points as if you have played the primary.
Why this happens?
The answer is simple.
If someone lose the secondary with a Decisive Loss then either his performance was terrible (which means that he lost many of his units) or he did this on purpose in order to lose very few of his unit (simply never engaged in the combat; he won't score anything for the primary). Either way he shouldn't be allowed to proceed to the primary with such a performance (better thing to replay the mission).

Hi Pyros,
I meant the one-turn scenario preceding the primairy mission. If you have a decisive defeat there (you take neither VH) you still go to the primairy mission. The only difference with getting a marginal victory is in getting 1 instead of 2 campaign points.

First time I tried the primairy mission I hadn't read through your post here very well and I was thoroughly confused as to what to do and how to proceed. Since it's a pretty long mission players may very well find themselves not remembering what they were supposed to do (imagine players not finishing it in one session but in several sittings) and were the enemy is supposed to be coming from. Lots of things happen in this scenario and I can very well imagine players losing track. Is there a way for players to consult their orders during a scenario?

[Pyros]

Hi Remco,

There is always a practical way to help the player by editing the map and adding there some tactical info (about the general direction/axis of approach of incoming enemy forces).
This is something that will help the player to keep track of the variables of a scenario, also this is something that every commander used to mark on a tactical map.
So in the revisison I will add some text on the map to help the player.

cheers,
Pyros

[wulfir]

Finished the first battle scenario.

I opted for the dedicated div support and deployed all forces in the south - except two mortars and three scout teams who went to the north.

The northern group I had to set up mortar positions and let the Aux infantry and scout teams guard the position. The suffred no losses while ambushing a few VC teams.

In the south I left a rifle platoon and a MG team to guard the VH and defeat the NVA forces I knew would be coming, this worked fine - set up a kill zone and finished off most of the NVA teams at once.

Charged through the village and to the hedgehog defences, I wondered why the NVA/VC mortars didn't fire because with all the VC teams and hiding pits the AI would be able to "see" parts of my forces most of the time.

Left a few scouts, shot up AUX infantry and two MG teams in the village, which were able to deal with the VC moving in on the village.

Pressed on and overran the trenchsystem with the bulk of my forces. Took maybe too heavy losses though because I relied on infantry rather than artillery to clear the trenches.

Did not try to take the single VHs in the "northeast" area of the map.

Managed a minor win.

First thoughts:
- Dangerous to leave infantry near 'VC spawning areas' as the reinforcing VC units will get the first shot (and if it's point blank it can hurt).

- Aircraft can be effective to intercept moving enemy units, managed to shot up about a platoon of NVA at the end with concentrated airstrikes. Also had a Skyraider tasked with attacking the trenchsystem attack my own forces at the other end of the map. Realistic but... ouch napalm!

[Pyros]

Ulf can you add your last save game?
What were your casualties in that mission?

Few words about the next (primary) mission.

The NVA forces have just started the assault against the Plei Me SP camp.
Several VC sapper units have made their path through the defensive perimeter and they will try to overrun the few defenders.
Other VC and NVA units have started to undermine the fortifications of the camp.
Since you failed to achieve a decisive victory in the previous mission you will face the double number of NVA mortars but you will start the mission from a shorter distance (deploy zone X=20) from the camp.
You must also expect an attack through the village (south) and through the west (VC coming behind you).
The "effective range" of the NVA arty can't cover more than half the camp so your tactics should take this into consideration.
Your counter-artillery planning should be a must early in the game.
One of your concerns in the frontline should be the presence of the ammo depots (cost 100 points!);but this should matter only if the player wish to achieve a decisive victory.
Anyway here are the objectives:

1. Defend against the NVA&VC attacks from the N, NW sides of the camp.
2. Defend against the S approach of the VC
3. Defend against the E approach of the VC
4. Neutralize the enemy arty
5. Retake any VP inside the camp
6. Try to contest (clear the zone) any VP outside the perimeter of the camp.

I will provide you also with a save game of a decisive victory of the secondary mission in order to see the difference.

The primary mission is on ALPHA stage.

cheers,
Pyros