***** ***** ***** ***** ***** 5 Star General ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** COPYWRITE (c) 1999-2001 Narayan Sengupta NewFrontiers@Mindspring.com October 23, 2001 v.1.4 [If you are having difficulty with the "Word Wrap" on this document, then do a Save As to save this document to your computer. Then use Notepad to open it and set the word wrap there. Alternatively, you can just view the source from your browser.] DESIGN TIPS FOR PANZER GENERAL II THANK YOU: ... to Jorge Gabitto for his excellent design notes on defensive scenarios. NOTES: I haven't found any place that has a concise set of design tips for the mechanics of setting up a scenario and a campaign, so here goes. This is geared toward the making an American campaign, though the ideas should work for others as well. Before starting, have a rough outline in mind. Don't be too ambitious. Start out with a something small like a three to five scenario campaign in mind. Trust me on that. You may even make the campaign so that you never have more than five to ten core units and a like number of opposing units for testing purposes and so that you can learn how to make campaigns. I have an IT company, and the one thing that I tell my staff over and over is prototype, prototype, prototype. What can go wrong, will. What can't go wrong will as well. So start small, and then grow as you get better. The small campaign that you start out with can always become a bigger one later once you have the hang of things. This will save you lots of time later. While this has been written for PG II, everything here will basically work for People's General, except as noted or where common sense applies. But since the game engines are basically the same, this is very convenient. So the Campaign Editors and Scenario Editors that work for PG II should also work for People's General. The ones that I have used so far do. BTW, where you see something like "(3)", that refers to a corresponding footnote at the end of this document. The notes will probably be longer than the body (from the end of this paragraph to the Other Resources) listed below because I've tried to keep those as simple as possible. So you should only need the notes the first time through. Subsequently, you should only need the body of this document. I would read this entire document, including the Footnotes, at least once before starting anything at all. That will save you lots of time later on. TOOLS NEEDED: >PG II game >PG II Campaign Editor (1)(14) >PG II Scenario Editor (1)(14) START THE GAME: >Start PG II >Start the Scenario Builder which takes you to the Scenario Parameters screen. STEPS FOR SCENARIO CREATION: >Select a map. (2)(16) >Set the date (which affects what is equipment is available). (3) >Enter a Title. (3) >Set the number of turns. (3) >Set the turns per day. (3) >Set the Ground Conditions. (3) >Set the Atmospheric Conditions. (3) >The description isn't necessary if the scenario will never be stand-alone. (3) >Use the default setting: Player 1 as Side 2 (yes, Side 2) with an American flag. (2)(7) >Use the default setting: Player 2 as Side 1 (yes, Side 1) with a German flag. (2) >Set the AI however you want. (3) >Set whatever other countries you want. (3) >Save the scenario. (6) >Continue to the Scenario Builder screen. For each player (see the top right corner of the Scenario Builder screen), do the following: >If it is going to be a defensive scenario, then read Jorge Gabitto's notes on how to do so. (19) >Set up one or more Supply hexes. These are NOT required for the scenario to work.(8) >Set up one or more Victory hexes. You MUST have at least one for each side. (4) >Set up one or more Ownership hexes (typically, but not always) on all cities and airfields. (4) >Set up one or more Deployment hexes for Player 1 only. (5) >Build your army. (11) >Deploy your army. (9)(10) >Set Prestige. (17) >Test the scenario by playing it as a stand-alone scenario. USING THE SCENARIO EDITOR: SCENARIO DATA (13) >Set the "Selection" (Show/Don't Show) flag. "Show" means that it will be visible as a Stand-Alone scenarios. (12) >Set the Brilliant, Victory, and Tactical turn numbers (e.g. 8, 10, 12). >Set the second Brilliant field from 10 to null (0 may work as well). This lets your scenario end and then go to the next scenario. PLAYER DATA (13) >(Optional) Set the number of Air and Ship transports. UNIT DATA >Modify leader specials, kills (for realism only) SAVE >You shouldn't have to touch or change anything else since everything else can be setup more easily with the PG II Scenario Builder. Make sure that you save your changes though, since that is easy to overlook. USING THE CAMPAIGN EDITOR: >If you haven't already done so, then use "Make New Campaign" to rapidly generate a campaign.(15) >Change any 255 settings to 254. 255 boots the player out immediately without any final score. >Addition of any .SMK and .MUS files is optional, and not recommended. >You can, if short on time, use the same TXT File for Brilliant Victory, Victory and Tactical Victory endings. >You'll need to create a General Scenario data TXT file and a Losing TXT file for each scenario as well. >Everything must be named/spelled exactly as the actual files that you have created, otherwise the campaign may fail.(18) >Integrate each scenario with your campaign. >Play the campaign up to the scenario. >Save the campaign just before you expect to end the scenario (so that you can use this as a starting point for the next scenario). >Repeat all of the above "Steps for Scenario Creation" for each scenario of your campaign. OTHER RESOURCES: Panzer General II - Scenario tips and tricks, by Lasse Jensen http://www.strategyplanet.com/panzergeneral/text/scntip.txt CONTACT ME: I will add to this document as I get time. Please send me your feedback as you have it. Thanks, Narayan NewFrontiers@Mindspring.com FOOTNOTES: (1) Use whichever one you want. Many such tools are available from http://www.strategyplanet.com/panzergeneral/pg2index.html. Also as of October, 2001, Luis Guzman has made an excellent scenario editor which is available from www.peachmountain.com/5star. (2) You will not be able to change this once you start placing flags on the map. If you try to, you will probably break/ruin your scenario. (3) This can be changed at any time without breaking your scenario (4) This is very confusing. Any Victory hex is actually an objective for the opposite side. So if you set up a Victory hex while setting up Player 1, that is actually a Victory objective for Player 2. In other words, Player 2 (the AI) will try to capture Player 1's victory hexes. To make things more confusing, you MUST set up a Player 2 Ownership flag on all Player 1 Victory hexes, and vice versa. The scenario will fail without that. If you are designing a D-Day type beach invasion scenario where the Player 1 doesn't control any of the land, then place your Victory hex in the ocean. Of course, it is unlikely that the Player 2 will ever be able to capture it, but it will allow your scenario to be played. For People's General, a Victory Hex for a certain Player is also one that will be attacked by the other Player. However, one doesn't have to also give it an opposite Player's Ownership Hex. There must be at least one Victory Hex under enemy control at the start of the scenario that can be captured for the scenario to be able to be won. This means that a purely defensive scenario is impossible. (5) You can set them up for Player 2 as well if this will be a stand-alone scenario. (6) Use a standardized naming convention. For example, I start all of my file names with NS and a campaign number, and end up with a name such as "NS1_Scenario1.scn". This allows me to neatly zip up all of the required files into a zip file without looking everywhere throughout my SCENARIO or USERSCEN folder. (7) You may notice that the Player 1 units be placed as gray units. That should be okay. When you save the scenario and return to it, they should be gold. If that doesn't work, then place Player 2 units, save, close, reopen the scenario. If that doesn't work, then exit the game, then reopen the game and the scenario, and it should be okay. If that doesn't work, then you may have done something wrong. (8) Supply hexes and their surrounding hexes are automatically treated as deployment hexes at the beginning of a scenario. You can put this in the ocean if needed, such as for a D-Day type beach invasion. (9) Units deployed in Deployment hexes will not show up during campaign play, except for during the first scenario. Units deployed in Deployment hexes for the first scenario will be Player 1's core forces. (10) To easily change the unit facings, right click on a unit after you have deployed it. Each right-click will turn it. Units deployed subsequently will deploy in the same direction as the last unit's facing after you have right clicked it. So this is the easy way to deploy units facing the right direction. Just right-click the first one until it faces the right direction, and then deploy the rest. Of course, you can change the direction of any of them at any time by right-clicking while deploying. (11) The first step to test a scenario is to buy just one or two units for each side (preferrably recons because of their recon movement). Place them next to the enemy's Victory hexes. Leave all of the Victory hexes unoccupied for this phase of testing. Save the scenario, and then play it as both sides using the "Play a Scenario" button. Use your Player 1 units to capture all of the required Victory hexes and make sure that the scenario ends the way you expect it to. You can then replay it as Player 2 and do the same. If everything checks out at this stage, then add all of the rest of the units that you want to have in the scenario, but do not add any more Victory or Supply hexes. You can always remove these units later if you need to by undeploying them and then "returning" them to the force pool at the Purchase screen. (12) This also means that you need a Scenario Description, play-testing and play-balance from both sides. (13) You could, theoretically, do these steps after finishing setting up the Scenario Parameters of your first scenario and adding at least one unit for either side. Save the first scenario as _Template.scn. Then load this scenario (_Template.scn), modify parameters as necessary (map), etc., before going to the next screen and then adding Victory, Deployment, and other hexes and then your units. It will save you from having to do these steps over and over. Of course, you may still have to use the Scenario Editor to change the number of turns allowed for Brilliant, Victory and Tactical wins. (14) I am using Lasse Jensen's PG2CM and PG2SEDIT (for editing Campaigns and Scenarios respectively) for this document. Both should be in your SCENARIO directory. PG2CM, however, is difficult to use because it requires a lot of backspacing, etc. But I don't have enough experience with other editors to know if they are better. These two editors also work for People's General files. As of October, 2001, Luis Guzman has made an excellent one which is available from www.peachmountain.com/5star. (15) Use the Express Make Campaign to make a campaign with 50 slots in it. You don't have to use all 50 slots. But this way, you can always add new scenarios easily without starting over later. You can also use slots 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20, for example. This gives you room to integrate other scenarios later between those. This technique is also useful for creating branching campaigns. (16) Keep in mind that many people don't like to download maps, so stick with the stock SSI PG II maps until you get a good feel for your audience. You can also use certain maps to substitute for another location. For example, I have used the Lillehammer map for Alaska. And Malta kind of looks like Iceland in the summer. :) (17) I use a number such as 100 per turn for the enemy, which will allow the enemy to buy a good unit every five turns or so. I use 0 per turn for Player 1. (18) If you don't an information screen between scenarios, it's probably because you have either omited or misspelled the text file your campaign is expecting. For example, it is easy to do this when moving files back and forth continuously between the Userscen and Scenario folders and any zip files, etc. (19) A good defensive scenario, by Jorge Gabitto: The AI should be able to attack effectively at the beginning of the scenario including overrunning part of your victory hexes, there should be possible to stop it with a good defensive tactic later on, and finally you should be able to counterattack to recover your hexes and take at least one previously own by the AI to win. This can be accomplished by having: (19.1). A good atacking AI. You can achieve this by allowing the AI to spot your position. Include radars, observation posts, etc., that allow the AI to see you. Sometimes you have to place planes also close to the lines. You should provide the AI with good mobile weapons, such as mobile guns, ATs, ADS. We all know the AI does not move towed weapons. Use also cavalry if possible, the extra 2 movement hexes make it good. Good infantry for the AI is also a must, soviet guards, german granadiers, USA rangers, etc., besides engineers, will make it. Do not use two many strong tanks, at least all at once... If you put many tanks [or planes], include them in waves, as reinforcements all throughout the scenario. My efile [includes] reinforced infantry and observation posts, etc. You can manage with others also. (19.2). Create a good defense for the AI made up of static elements in those AI victory hexes to be taken. You should include forts, ATs, ADs without transport. In these way even after taking the initiative you will have to struggle to take the hexes back. I used to add AI reinforcements on victory hexes own by the player at the beginning of the scenario. In that way after you loose them the AI will become very strong there. Of course, remember to make most of the AI victory hexes, victory hexes for both players. (19.3) Space is one of the most important elements in the game. The AI should own at least 50% of the terrain at the beginning and should be able to get more. In this way you have to travel far to recover your victory hexes and take the AI ones. Normally I put my best counterattacking units by the edge of the map, so you cannot reach the front for 2 or 3 turns. If you do not follow these rules at the beginning of the scenario you can make sure that a similar situation is achieved after 2 or 3 turns. In Western Ukraine (Reich Defense) scenario the player owns at the beginning 75% of the map. After 2 turns he owns only 25%. It is very striking the contrast. (19.4) Time is also very important. Make sure that all this happens within the fixed time frames. The timing of reinforcements is critical. Make everything difficult for the player, but not overwhelming. You have to be very creative designing these scenarios. The AI plays on its own very badly you need to pump it up, but not too much. The old recipe of creating scenarios just by piling up killer units on the AI side does not sell anymore.