Neophyte Campaign Designer Looking for a Mentor

SEOW campaign designers contributing their scenario notes, orders of battle and other useful research.
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Kopfdorfer
Posts: 99
Joined: Thu 26 Apr 2012 2:13 pm
Location: Dartmouth , Nova Scotia , Canada

Neophyte Campaign Designer Looking for a Mentor

Post by Kopfdorfer »

Greetings All,

Shades suggested I repost my query here.

As in my entry in the General Discussion Forum , I have developed an interest in SEOW over several years of peripheral attention , and if someone with some campaign design experience out there is willing , I'd like to try my hand at designing a simple short SEOW campaign.

My experience?
Specific to SEOW as close to nil as it gets short of none - I guested on one mission a couple of years ago, and the Mission crashed for everyone after about half an hour. I bear no negative feelings about the experience other than disappointment I didn't get to fly the whole thing.
I have designed scenarios for years in IL2 and other WW2 wargames , and my historical interest is near insatiable.
I am not at ease in the computer world , but I bash my way through as best I can.

My Aspirations for this project?
I need a patient mentor to interpret SEOW particulars for me. I would need to work on an open type schedule , but as I am not entirely a fool , I realise that one of the things I will need assistance in is how to streamline my first project and keep it as simple as possible. I am not looking for someone to do the work , but my very limited knowledge , despite reading all of the SEOW wiki , and reading information available here, means that I will require a patient mentor.

My Campaign Idea.
Because I am aware of the need to keep things as simple as possible if I am to
a) attract the interest of a realistic mentor , and
b) to succeed in completing the campaign ,
I tried to pick a contained campaign idea. I have also accepted that I should probably relax my inherent desire for historical accuracy a bit. I wanted an idea that would be interesting to both blue and red sides , and was playable in about 10 campaign missions.
I felt that the template should be kept as simple as possible without compromising enough unique attributes to attract and hold players interest.

The Campaign idea is as follows :

"The Bitter End"
The closing weeks of WW2 in Northern Holland March 1945
Allied Air Units From 84 Group 2nd Tactical Air Force
Allied Ground Units from 1st Canadian Army
German Ground Units from Festung Holland
German Luftwaffe Units various unit remnants*
* more specific unit work to be done here

The Map : NWE ( I wanted to pick a map that was already SEOW approved)

Campaign Length : ~ 3-4 days chronological time
<10 Missions

Pilots : ~12 per side

Campaign Goals : (Subject to Change due to advice)
Allies win if they capture all German airfields , or by Victory Point Totals.
Germans win by maintaining control of airfield(s) and/or by Victory Point Totals.

I have a template well underway , and have a breakdown of planeset and ground units started.


Further info available for anyone willing to talk to me directly.
I can be contacted here or at SAS (I am there much more frequently) if anyone is interested in taking the next step with me.

Thanks for your consideration.

Kopfdorfer
IV/JG7_4Shades
Posts: 2201
Joined: Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:10 pm
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Post by IV/JG7_4Shades »

Hi Kopfdorfer,

That's a start - you have a context and a map identified. But there is a lot more to do. Things to consider are:

1. Complete order of battle (air and ground)
2. Starting positions
3. Campaign settings (recon, factory production, supply, ground movement, playability settings, night/day action, spies/resistance etc etc)
4. With 24 pilots in the air per mission, you should bank on losing 16 airframes per mission. Not realistic, but humans do not play IL-2 with the right amount of fear and self-preservation. Do you have enough airframes to provide seats for your pilots during the campaign?
5. Is this primarily an air campaign, a ground campaign, or both?
6. Do you want commanders to set up the starting positions with secrecy, or do you want to specify the starting positions as designer?

Cheers,
4Shades
IV/JG7_4Shades
SEOW Developer

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Kopfdorfer
Posts: 99
Joined: Thu 26 Apr 2012 2:13 pm
Location: Dartmouth , Nova Scotia , Canada

continuing the discussion...

Post by Kopfdorfer »

Thanks for the reply , 4Shades.

I am aware that I am starting from ground zero, so I need advice about a lot of things. The most glaring will continue to be :
"How do my design decisions affect the (potential) play of the campaign?"

Regarding your list of considerations...

1. OOB. I have already done a fair bit of research on the units available and have what I feel is a good starting point. As I am currently on a computer at the public library with a time limit, I will forego this point until I can sit down with enough time to layout my OOBs for consideration.
I am also interested in preserving some fog of war as to the exact OOB for potential players, and will need some advice on how to preserve this while at the same time as trying to sell my campaign as interesting and enjoyable to play.

2. Starting positions. Open the NWE map , and picture the main N-S water way (C8-8 to C1-3) as the Issjel River/Kanal. Picture the secondary N-S waterway (G8-7 to F1-3) as the Ems River/Kanal.
At campaign start the Allies are in control of all positions west of the Issjel except for a couple of small bridgeheads at the only standing bridges on the Issjel (B5-5 , B5-2, B4-9, C2-8) which are held by the Germans. Say with about 5 km radius of each bridge. The Allies hold Airfields A6-9 and A2-2 , and the Germans hold the rest.

3. Campaign settings. This is where I need the most advice , as I have no experience from which to judge the effect of my decisions on campaign play. As generic concepts , my ideas are as follows...
One thing I would like to incorporate , if this is possible, is to have the Allied side call in strategic air support single missions - enter - strike - exit (AI only) from RAF bomber command , and US 9th AF.
This would be from a limited palate of mission choices pre-designed by me, ie
B26 MB strike day only , B25 Mitchell MB strike day only , B24 HB strike day only, Halifax HB strike day or nite , Lancaster HB strike day or nite ,
Mosquito BXVI strike D or N , Mosquito BIV low level strike D or N, P38 , P47 , P51 escort in prepackaged combos and limited both in total for the campaign , and per day or mission...

a. Recon.
The recon at campaign start is poor for both sides due to recent poor flying weather. I would like a decaying recon setting , but considering a relatively short campaign , this setting should not be too high, or the entire campaign might end up operating in total fog of war. I don't think that would be entirely interesting for mission planners or players.
b.Factory Production.
The Allies will benefit from no factory production as they would not have had any historically. I think the Germans should benefit from some , in terms of synthetic fuel , general supply production ( which should be one of their greatest challenges) and the production of a couple of specific materials - I had in mind dedicated factories for V-1 production , 3.7cm FlaK41 production , and Sdkfz 11 production.
c. Supply.
The Allies would have to ship in all supply other than a modest supply base at each airfield at start , and a small supply dump for each large formation onboard at start ( one for 4th Cdn Armd Div , and one for 2nd Cdn Inf Div). 1st Pol Armd Div would be an entering reinforcement, and thus all its supplies would have to be entered.
The Germans would have entering supplies in small amounts by air , road , rail and (if it would work in game) by canal.
d.Ground Movement.
I would like to have the ground movement reflect the historical situation , so the following concepts should apply:
The Allies should have more ground movement options available.
The Germans should have limited ground movement ( few functioning vehicles ,reduced Command and Control) and reduced ground movement by day due to Allied strategic air superiority.
The Allies should have reduced ground movement available at night.
The Germans should have increased ground movement by night.
The Germans should have trains.
The Allies should not have trains.
e. Playability Settings.
Despite having read the SEOW Wiki info a few times over , I don't know what you mean here.
f. Night and Day Action. My campaign is currently planned to run for about three days campaign time cApril 10-13 1945. I thought 2-3 turns per day and 1 turn per night would be appropriate.
Turn 1 Day 0600
2 Day 1200
3 Day 1800
4 Nite 2400
5 Day 0600
6 Day 1200
7 Day 1800
8 Nite 2400
9 Day 0600
10Day 1200
11Day 1800

The interval could be reduced to 8 hours , and 2 day turns per day.
g. I would like spies available to the Allies only , as representative of the strong contribution of the Dutch Underground. The Germans would have political units.
The Allies would have the choice of propaganda leaflets.

4. Airframe Replacement.
The Allies should have automatic airframe/pilot replacements available on say, 12 hour delay to account for orders, pilot assignments and just getting the aircraft in from either the UK or bases in liberated France.
I realize this is probably quite generous in terms of reality, but the campaign is quite short.
The Germans should have no replacement aircraft available.
(I am sure this might be unpalatable to blue flyers - I prefer to fly blue myself - in order to counteract that in terms of campaign enjoyment , I have given the Germans a wider variety of flyable aircraft available. I hope this will satisfy the blue flyers.
I could also reduce the number of aircraft flying per mission, if necessary, but I wanted to preserve what I feel from my research was true of this time - most air to airs were on a smaller scale at this time , but every once in a while - FURBALL!

5. Is this an air campaign , a ground campaign , or both?
I had envisioned this as a both. Clearly the Allies will be dominant in terms of numbers , especially on the ground , but the blue side should feel some hope to win the camapaign with a plethora of flak , nebelwerfers, V-1s and some high tech air units.

6. Starting positions with secrecy, or placed by the designer.
Well, frankly I was hoping for a hybrid of this one. I wanted the players to have common knowledge of the general situation , but limited specific knowledge of the opponent. I have already drafted intel briefings for each side , and I'll be happy to share these for feedback , but as they are army specific I'd prefer not to publicize them in order to preserve some fog of war for the campaign.
In terms of at start placement , I had hoped it would be possible to place
most units by designer (me) , yet have the player CO's able to place a few key units.

That's it for now. OOBs to follow.

Kopfdorfer
II/JG77Hawk_5
Posts: 162
Joined: Wed 10 Jan 2007 1:13 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by II/JG77Hawk_5 »

Hi Kopfdorfer,
the playability settings are there to help keep the frame rates under control. How many players, the numbers on units on the move per mission, how many ships, aircraft etc all have an effect. Tweak these settings to suit the campaign and of course the host PC that is going to run the mission.

Your idea on the bombing missions on call suggest you hope to have pre configured missions that could be selected and adjusted to suit the target? This isn't currently available in SEOW. Each flight must be manually planned. They can enter from an air start position and exit to another. These air supply and withdraw points can also be configured to limit the aircraft and fuel loads and flights can be planned in advance if the flight is brought onto map.

The system can be configured so much to suit your needs that you really need to spend some time getting your basic template set up then initialising it and seeing how it looks and even running some test missions to see all works as intended.

In my experience, even the most intensely planned campaign can take a different direction from that intended purely because people will not do as they are expected. To me this is of course the best part of SEOW. A simple template with a good framework and ruleset can develop into a complex and very enjoyable campaign.

Cheers,
5
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