I was wondering if anyone has recently played the St. Vith Scenario of TAO2 as the Germans against the CPU. If you have did you win? I have found this scenario the toughest one to beat. I have played all of them from both sides and some I still have not won however I have come closer in all of them than in this one by far.The CPU Allies essentially falls back to the outline of the major river line and given the 12 turn duration and the forces I have, (atleast 20 attempts), not been able to achieve a victory as the Germans. I have massed my armour and driven for Stavelot-Troi Ponts area, I have tried Flanking from the south, I have tried a broad front approach and while acheiving success in advancing have come nowhere close to victoy. Watching the CPU as the Germans has given me some tips however they have only gotten close to victory with the Germans themselves. Most everyone probably have not played this scenario in many years so I will keep at it. I am just curious because this has given me questions as to the winnability (is that a word?) of certain battles and the manipulation the designer has to make to the simulated battle to make "winning" a possibility for one side. Taking the recent Iraqi war, I do not think a game would be very interesting (I am sure there are areas of certain battles that would) but given the situation I guess the scenario design has to manipulate the scenario to give the iraqis a win for delaying the allies longer than they did historically because the eventual outcome is given. I have been looking at battles in the book Panzer Battles and trying to figure out ( alot of battles in NA seemed to be even and could have gone either way) what made one side win and the other lose, and how that ties into the future battles that would have happened. Like suppose Rommel had taken Tobruk, ( I know that would not have happened as some of the best troops in the world were defending there :), honestly), how would that have changed the situation in NA? Was it ineveitable given the arrival of the US and the waning interest by the German High command? (Sorry if this is going off topic abit, however it does pertain to scenario creation ;) ) . Anyway, this has become a novel so I will leave it there. Did I mention I need this game like NOW!! :)

Oh gosh.. its been a while since I have fired up TAO2.. I cant remember..

The Sth Vith scenario will not be part of the Korsun Pocket release though.. but to be honest that was the first scenario I was going to attempt using the editor myself..

In terms of play balance, that comes into effect through the allocation of Victory Points to objectives and the destruction of enemy units.

One way to make an 'unevenly matched' battle more even is through the use of victory points. Often to achieve a victory it isnt enough to win the battle - but to actually do better then the side you are playing did historically.

So to win as the Germans in TAO doesnt mean you have to get to the Meuse or kill every allied unit.. it means you have to do better then they did historically.. and then you may come away with the win. I think this is the sort of thing which SSG have always tried to achieve in their games (even going back to where it all started with Battlefront on the C64)

.. and its something which can turn a seemingly one sided (realistic battle) into a good PC game. For example, you are right, the Iraqi war was one sided. But if it was made into a PC game, the challange may be to go better then the USA or Iraqi's did historically.. and if you could then you would win.

Its not always about who wins the war.. but how well you play!

Note that I the scenario's made with the editor would probably have to be limited to World War I and II scenarios.. given the title of the series :)

I dont see any reasons why NA scenarios couldnt be made.. and SSG may even have a view to publish a game or two from that theatre in the future..

I agree with all your points and then some. Also I think NA has been underdone and offers some interesting options however I understand why as the mainstream is less interested in NA than the other theaters.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I warm to the idea that some good scenarios could be made from the North Africa theatre..

yeah...just think of the manoeuvre possibilities!

Reading comments about the ST. Vith scenario in TAO2. I prefer to use this as an introductory game for boot camp players (Blitzkrieg Wargames Club) or other rookies.

As Ken says it is tough for the German player so I put the novice in as the US where he can take advantage of a strong concentration of units and the defensive terrain and river line. The experienced player has a powerful tool in the German army and can still make a good game of it.

With VPs awarded for unit kills as well as objectives the German player can win even if they don't reach Liege (they won't!) or even cross the Ambleve river. It is quite common for new players to attempt to defend everything and expose their units too far forward. If they lose too many then the German player can advance further than historically. However usually these games are fairly close and I hope enjoyable contests for both of the participants.

Well I'm happy to say I've constructed my first scenario; it took a couple of evenings to work out the editor - that was slow to start with as there are no instructions. However it wasn't long before I'd worked out most things.

Programming the AI is very cool. You can make up unlimited numbers of operations, assign operation phases to different turn groups, assign unit groups different operations etc...you can give groups attack or defend operations, define distances from enemy units...define lowest AI combat odds, the list goes on.

I'll put the scen (hopefully the first of many...) on the site for download once I'm happy with the balance. And tooled around with the AI some more, so far I've only done really basic stuff there.

Cheers Chris

Glad to hear that even without instructions you were able to manage working through it. Are you able to define additional units in the game as well as create different Maps or are you limited to the map and units for Korsun and Ardennes? If this was asked before I'm sorry.

Thanks

You arent limited to the same units and maps.. so for instance if you really wanted to you could create a North Africa scenario or a Pacific scenario.. but its a lot more difficult and a heap more work.. as far as I know.

With any luck there will be a published tutorial on basic scenario design by the time the game is released..

Chris

Perhaps the Ardennes scenario of DBWW2 can be adjusted to activate forces at crucial moments in a game. I am currently playing a game of Last Blitzkrieg in TAO2 against a German opponent. On turn 13 he took Givet and a path across the Meuse is now open. On my turn 13 what did the British forces arrayed along the banks of that river between Liege and Dinant do? That's right, nothing .. still drinking tea I expect! Unless my opponent moves his forces within three hexes of a British unit he can dance around them to his heart's content.

Contrast this with the DBWW2 Ardennes scenario (I am a beta tester and have been playing Rob) . My US opponent had no need of the British which were never activated as alert units ( the high water mark of my offensive was taking Houffalize!). However on turn 25 when my forces are crumbling and retreating the British 30th XXX arrives in all its glory and has no restrictions on is use in joint attacks with the Yanks (it hasn't happened yet but Rob seems to think there is no bar on this being allowed by the program).

Contrast this with TAO2 where the British had a separate turn and US & British units could not even stack in the same hex let alone attack together. Rob has suggested I change the British release (which may be ahistoric, I'm not sure) in the editor. I intend to do so when I get hold of the final release version of KP.

I'm not completely sure about this, but I know you can set hidden AI objective hexes. I will have a look and see if I can trigger reinforcements if enemy units unwittingly "capture" these hidden objectives. It would work in much the same way as when capturing a normal objective, ie if the designer wants to, it might release enemy forces as reinforcements...although these are always off-map rather than fixed like the Brits.

As you can tell, I'm still coming to grips with the editor, but I have to tell you I've never ever seen something so powerful - designing the perfect scenario is as challenging as playing a good game against a tough opponent (although takes a lot longer to do!!).

Had my first real look at the editor today. Managed to create a skirmish using the South Western edge of the Ardennes map around Sedan.

The first 30 minutes it was panic stations working out what to do, but after that it was surprisingly easy.. didnt look at the AI components though.. just assigning units to the map, setting up reinforcements, strong points, supply sources and scenario info like the weather etc.

Where do you find this editor, the link I have doesn't exist.

What's the link you are referring to Todd? I assume its for the TAO2 editor that Peter Fischer (?) wrote a few years back.

The editor we have been referring to here is the editor that will ship with Korsun Pocket, when its finally released in the next few weeks.

On the St. Vith scenario - it's actually quite easy to squish the AI if you focus on surrounding and eliminating his units rather than seizing territory immediately. The AI is not good at watching its flanks, and it's usually not difficult to pocket its forces - especially when it tries to counterattack.

Aside from the 106 division, which is an easy kill in the first few turns, I find that I can often swing north at Malmedy or a bit past that. With the panzers heading north, the 2 follow-on panzer divisions to reinforce, and a subsidiary thrust by the 3 PzG around Monschau, you can surround most of the US 99th and 2nd inf, plus lots of odds and ends. Then the AI will throw in its reinforcements piecemeal, and crushing a lone unsupported ARM division is not difficult. The key is surrounding the AI's units at any cost.

In addition to liquidating usually 4 to 7 US divisions in the St. Vith scenario, by the end the AI can't cover all the objectives. On occassion, I even reach Liege.

Human players, of course, are not so rash as to let entire corps be surrounded!

Yeah, I was interested in the TAO2 editor. Does anyone know if I can still download it from somewhere?

You should be able to get hold of the old TAO2 editor via this link:

http://www.users.on.net/chrism/TAOEdit.zip

I am not sure though if it is compatible with TAO2.4.0 - I suspect it will only work with earlier versions :=/

You should find the editor in KP much more straight forward (sorry Peter!) but it still requires an investment in your time to get the best out of it.

Cheers Chris

sorry try:

http://www.users.on.net/chrism/TAOEdit.zip

Thanks for the link, I think I will also look into KP.

This thread has now been closed off due to the introdcution of a local BBS discussion forum which can be found from the Discussion link on the menu.

Thank you.