Release

[Allenby]

It’s about time we started thinking about the release arrangements.

Firstly, when it’s going to be made available for download - I’m sure we’re going to be somewhat busy in the days before Christmas (buying presents a few days before, or if you’re me, on Christmas Eve…), so perhaps the 14th December would be sensible? It’s a Sunday. It would be reasonable if we were to allow plenty of days before this date to allow for thorough testing and for the necessary adjustments to ensure that the mod is as clean as a whistle. If we start that process on the 6th December (there or thereabouts), then that should give us thirty-five days from today to complete the first version - when that's done, beta testing can begin.

Therefore, I think it’s probably wise if we were to devote the bulk of our work from now ‘til that date on the most vital parts of the mod. Firstly, the technology tree (how much left needs to be done) needs to be finished as quickly as possible, especially the effects that each technological advancement has. Pictures and descriptions can be done if we have time. I offered to do the pictures, but I’ve found myself distracted with doing other things – besides, it’s difficult finding pictures for the Horizontal Rudder or Bakelite Plastics tech advance. I recall someone offered to do the descriptions for all of these, but he appears to have gone the same way as Shergar…

Secondly, although we may have to make do with ‘default’ AI settings, at the very least, it would be satisfying to have the German AI devote the bulk of their forces to the border with Belgium at the outbreak of war, and for the High Seas Fleet to be as timid as possible in the frequency with which it sorties out into the North Sea.

Thirdly, perhaps less importantly, German infantry wearing pickelhaube helmets, and something decent to represent fortress infantry. Anything else that’s been posted and we’ve approved obviously goes in. Anything else (An Arab on a horse in the style of Omar Sharif, for example) would be bonus.

Fourth, defeat events, peace treaty events and revolution events I’ll do. (Stephen, will the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by mine, or should it fall under your domain, seeing as you’ve done nearly all of the Russian events?)

Fifth, I shall complete the minister lists, although many will simply include heads of state and government for now.

Sixth, we need to work out how to make the leader lists work, and establish how many leaders we’ve actually found. We’ll wait until KB emerges again.

Seventh, models and unit names. As far as I know, Johan’s doing the air squadrons and armoured formations, and I’m doing the ships. Models shouldn’t be a problem, as they’re largely listed in the big book.

Eighth, Johan’s scripting manpower, and I think that resources and convoys have yet to be completed.

 

[Johan Elisson]

This is what comes to my mind right now:

• The victory points have to be located. Important to not make Austria-Hungary annex Serbia when capturing Belgrade, and important to make it possible for Germany to win without having to defeat the whole world (Entente VPs are Russia's, UK's, USA's, France's, Japan's, Rumania's, Serbia's, Montenegro's, Portugal's, China's, and so on, which means a lot to conquer...). I think that shdwknightx delegated this work to someone?
• The manpower list is almost ready, I have just some majors left, but then we have to tweak it by reducing MP in colonies and deciding starting MP pool.
• The tech tree has a skeleton (scripted tree, not necessarily with bonuses scripted) for all techs except Industrial, Gas, Balloon, Airplane and Naval Doctrine (Nuclear is nothing at the moment). I have got techs for most trees, so it is mostly scripting and placing of the techs that isn't finished. I will do this this and next weekend.
• Giving techs to countries at the start of the scenario could be a little complicated, trying to balance the forces.
• As I see it, graphics that are needed are complete, except for (as Allenby said) Fortress (which has the mech sprite at the moment).
• AI is an unexplored area, I have mixtured a little with it, so I could probably create a basic AI-file for major countries, basic in the means of pointing on which borders the units should be, and att what odds to attack.
• OOBs should be finished by now. Surely, changes may be done when we get fresh information, but we have working OOBs for all countries.
• Events are coming along fine, we don't have many "flavor" events, but that is an after-release process.
• Leaders and ministers look ok, just make sure that countries that is going to fight have enough leaders to support their units. Leaders for South American countries should be prio 0, since they don't need leaders if they aren't going to fight. Ministers are less important, as said, HoS and HoG should do for the moment.
• Units are connected to the tech tree, and should be easy to do when the trees are finished.
• Resources is a thing we haven't taken the slightest look at, but most of it should remain the same as in original HoI, with some minor tweaks (i.e. giving Montenegro more than the 0 resources they have...).

That's all for now from me.

Over and out.

/Johan

 

[Shadow Knight]

Those list cover about everything I can think of. If I don't hear anything about the VP's in the next few days, I shall sit down and plug some numbers out.

The only thing not mentioned though was IC's. I think a long time ago we decided to keep vanilla HOI's (v. 1.05c) starting IC, but cut some of the countries by a third, i.e. Russia, but I can't recall all the countries we decided upon. While I am looking at VP's I can also look at the IC"s for those countries that need to be cut. However I need to know which countries those shall be.

Same with resources...a more arduous task. Are there any countries that absolutely need to be looked at, other than Montenegro? I can peer at those numbers too while I scan over the provinces for VP's.

As for convoys have them set up so all places start in supply with minimum transports (i.e. not in the red). And for starting transports give everyone say 20, except the majors that have large fleets give 50. Two exceptions GB and the US had large merchant marines so give them say 100.

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[StephenT]

Is it possible to get a list of each country's basic IC and resource production? (I can have a go if nobody else has an easy way of doing it). Then we can rank each country, and see what adjustments need to be made. Also, initial resource pools can be set at, say, 90 days' production, rounded off.

As for convoys, I'd be inclined now to just do this for locations where troops are situated in January 1914, so that they don't starve to death if the player doesn't realise they're there. The country.inc files for Britain, France and Germany I put on my website earlier already have this done. Leave setting up resource convoys to the players.

If Britain's merchant fleet is set at 100 (which it is in the 1936 scenario also), then based on merchant shipping tonnage in June 1914, other countries should get the following:

Belgium 2
Brazil 2
France 10
Greece 4
Italy 7
Japan 9
Russia 4
USA 10
Germany 26
Austria-Hungary 5
Ottomans 1
Denmark 4
Netherlands 7
Norway 10
Spain 4
Sweden 5
Every other country in the world combined 4

Of course, these figures don't take account of the convoys necessary to carry supplies, and we might need to arbitrarily increase some of the smaller countries' figures. But the fact is that Britain had almost half (48%) of the world's shipping tonnage in 1914, Germany came next with 12%, and the USA in third place with just under 5%.

 

[Shadow Knight]

I'll see about getting you a list of each country's starting IC and resources (do you need it broken down into province levels?).

I am inclined to go with Stephen's numbers on the number of transports, since he has some historical data on the actual numbers. For the four to the rest of the world, how about one to Portugal, China, Argentina, and Chile.

For convoy set up to places with troops that's probably the best idea, although we should note in the Readme (argh another thing we need to do) to remind players to make sure to set up resource convoys.

What about gving those already set up convoys for free? Then let those numbers Stephen gave as starting transport numbers.

 

[Johan Elisson]

Originally posted by shdwknightx
What about gving those already set up convoys for free? Then let those numbers Stephen gave as starting transport numbers.

Sounds like a good idea. Would be pretty poor to see all US/Dutch/Belgian/Portugese overseas-armies dissapear because "in real life, they didn't have enough tonnage".

/Johan

 

[Gwalcmai]

Anyone know if a division at 25% strength has the same supply requirements as a full-strength unit? Not that it is incredibly important anyway...

I seem to remember a feature that nations get free transport ships (or convoy points, if you will) in relation the the amount of ports they own. So, even if the tonnage is historically accurate in 1914, it will begin to skew quickly. Btw, some supply shortage is kind of historical for portuguese units in Africa (and Europe, too, but that's another story). The "esquadrilhas expedicionárias" (plane squadrons) sent to Angola and Moçambique to support operations against the germans only started operating in 1918 due to lack of appropriate fuel. Of course, this is more of a problem with logistics (I'd call it outright incompetence).

Anyway, that wasn't the reason I'm posting at all! Do you know this page? League of nations data The oldest data is from 1926, but it might help determining economic levels.

edit: this is what happens when you don't look at the data before linking to it... Contained therein are data from "last pre-war census" and "latest census". Really good source of information".

 

[StephenT]

Originally posted by Gwalcmai
Anyone know if a division at 25% strength has the same supply requirements as a full-strength unit? Not that it is incredibly important anyway...

If we're setting up convoys, I don't think it matters - as long as the convoy chain is in place, the units will be supplied. (To be accurate, they will be out of supply on day 1 of the scenario, then go into supply the following day as the convoy chain delivers its first supplies).
Incidentally, the British empire needs 165 transports just to set up its starting supply convoys. This is an example of the code needed, for the Britain to Ireland convoy chain:

convoy = { # to Ireland
        id = { type = 27112 id = 12 } 
        transports = 8 
        escorts = 0 
        rubber = no 
        coal = no 
        steel = no 
        oil = yes 
        supplies = yes 
        path = { 491 505 495 } 
        }

Note no convoy escorts in 1914! To write this, I started a game as Britain, set up the convoy, saved, then opened the save game and copied the convoy text into the country.inc file. (Giving it a more appropriate ID code than the game-assigned one in the process)

I seem to remember a feature that nations get free transport ships (or convoy points, if you will) in relation the the amount of ports they own.

Yes they do.

Incidentally, an alternative to the supply convoys would be to set up supply dumps for the powers like Portugal or Belgium. These are added to the country.inc file, normally as the first line:

province = {  id = 1100  oilpool = 100 supplypool = 200 } # Egypt (Port Said)

Province fortifications are added the same way.

 

[Shadow Knight]

Okay Stephen this is what I got from the pre-alpha version, but since the version I had of that used 1.04, the values may be a bit different from 1.05c. However it is a start.

Such as the US has pretty low level of steel in this version when it should be pretty high.

One question why do some countries start with dissent rating? If it has too, it would be nice for an explanation of why, instead of just getting stuck with it in the beginning. (Such as the Ottomans starting with 6% dissent, which leads into the next part.)

Some notes on IC I came across. Some countries such as the Ottomans produced such little IC that they could not even reduce dissent when the slide bar was all the way over to the right in consumer goods. Others such as Russia seem way to high

Also we should give every country at least one type of resource in enough abundance that they can trade it on the world market to get the others which they are lacking (So they can have at least maximum value for starting IC).

Country Coal Steel Rubber Oil IC
GB 1818 1153 1066 146 520
FR 371 325 188 0 197
GR 1705 265 45 12 416
AH 591 205 0 30 230
IT 480 60 0 0 129
OE 288 153 0 159 73
RUS 1595 910 0 229 513
USA 2158 770 0 1010 925
Afghanistan 30 15 0 0 12
Albania 50 40 0 8 5
Argentina 90 35 0 4 57
Belgium 150 100 119 0 56
Bhutan 10 5 0 0 2
Bolivia 40 10 0 0 19
Brazil 160 100 159 0 120
Bulgaria 45 40 0 0 39
Chile 40 80 0 0 37
China 1469 1210 0 129 123
(China will need to be split between China & that Manchurian Warlord ptah convinced Allenby to include)
Columbia 50 5 50 7 35
Costa Rica 20 10 0 0 5
Cuba 60 15 0 0 10
Denmark 20 10 0 0 39
Domincan Rep 40 10 0 0 5
Ecuador 40 10 0 6 18
Greece 75 30 0 0 27
Guatemala 40 10 15 0 5
Haiti 40 10 0 0 5
Hedjaz 5 2 0 0 4
Honduras 40 10 15 0 5
Japan 470 405 0 7 167
(Why does Korea not have any resources?)
Jebel Shammar 0 0 0 0 0
Liberia 10 10 43 0 5
Luxembourg 40 10 0 0 6
Mexican Rebs 60 40 0 27 19
Mexico 50 20 15 7 37
Mongolia 20 10 0 0 5
Montenegro 0 0 0 0 1
Nejd 15 7 0 2 7
Nepal 20 10 0 0 5
Netherlands 95 100 677 118 73
Nicuragua 40 10 15 0 5
Norway 40 30 0 0 36
Oman 20 10 0 0 5
Panama 20 10 0 0 5
Paraguay 20 10 9 0 5
Persia 60 20 0 33 36
Peru 60 20 0 4 25
Portugal 35 15 15 0 32
Romania 40 30 0 53 29
Sanusia 0 0 0 0 0
Serbia 60 20 0 0 20
Siam 15 10 83 0 20
Spain 255 50 0 0 70
Sweden 120 375 0 0 66
Swiss 35 5 0 0 24
Tibet 20 10 0 6 7
Uruguay 10 5 0 0 10
Venezuela 45 15 30 184 45
Yemen 20 10 0 0 5


Some more thoughts: Is it possible to start the world market with 9999 in each resource? Also should we set up starting trades for each nation so as tbey can use all of their starting IC's?

 

[Allenby]

14th December is the release date, and I thought it best to do some planning so that nothing goes wrong.

Presumably someone's going to post a stickied download thread on that day where people can get the mod, and that person ought to be the person who is compiling the completed version - Stephen

A few days before that date ought to be put aside for testing the AIs, the game's reaction to the distribution of techs, and any obvious errors with minister files ( :wacko: ) or events, so that we have plenty of time to make note of anything that makes the mod go arse over tip. So given this, we ought to be aiming to get everything done by...10th December?

ICs, manpower and Victory Points are on the way. The tech tree has a few gaps but if no one comes up with any suggestion then it wouldn't be too problematic if we just rehashed old techs with the word 'advanced' before them, and then thought of something more appropriate later.

It would seem that the AIs are beginning to come good as well, although that spate of coders we had a few days ago don't seem to have reappeared. Nevertheless, it looks like we have Turkish and American AIs on their way to some sort of completion.

I don't know the situation concerning German, Austro-Hungarian, French, Russian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese leader lists - how many we have, their composition and whether we have pictures for them is something I'm sure KB shall tell us when he reads this.

The most important minister lists, although there is a large number of small countries that don't even have skeleton lists with just the Heads of State and Government - they shall be quite easy to do, and I'll ensure that they are done.

Defeat, Peace and revolution events are also being done - they are in working order so far. We ought to make sure that no adverse complications arise from them being in the game, however. (Britain declaring war on Senusia in January 1914 and being 'defeated' because of the dissent hit, for example)

It would seem that all is going according to plan then

 

[Shadow Knight]

"I love it when a plan comes together."
-- Hannibal Smith (The A-Team)

Sounds good Allenby. Hopefully Sanusia shall not be too much of a problem, (asuming your using my VP list) with 5 VP's on their one territory, Italy should be prompted to move against them quickly.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

The Tech tree seems mostly done.

Only a couple more branches.

I can mirror the download, once we get it up and running, as well.

Steele

 

[Allenby]

Originally posted by Shadow Knight
"I love it when a plan comes together."
-- Hannibal Smith (The A-Team)

...It was ironic that you should quote that because I've dyed my hair white and I was wearing black leather gloves and smoking a big cigar as I was writing that post...

I'm hoping that KB's going to be around for a bit now, so that we can be totally sure that our leader files work.

 

[Shadow Knight]

Originally posted by Allenby
...It was ironic that you should quote that because I've dyed my hair white and I was wearing black leather gloves and smoking a big cigar as I was writing that post...

I'm hoping that KB's going to be around for a bit now, so that we can be totally sure that our leader files work.

:rofl:

If your Hannibal, that must make Stephen....Mr. T.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

I pity the foo' who don't play TGW.

Steele

 

[unmerged(16277)]

Im just looking forward to this becoming available to play

I love the great war for wargaming

 

[unmerged(11486)]

In a few days shy of a month, you'll get it.

Steele

 

[unmerged(11819)]

I'm EXTREMELY eagerly awaiting this mod..good luck and also thanks for putting in so much work to what looks like an incredible mod! now just release it!

 

[unmerged(11486)]

We're getting there. Just be patient.

Steele

 

[Gwalcmai]

The release date is getting damn close, I better get off my sorry arse and finish all the stuff I started... Luckily the release date for Victoria has been postponed to early december in Spain (I'm buying it there), so I should be able to dedicate my spare time to doing what I said I would.