Hi,
The core force of your campaign is whatever forces you buy for the human player at the first scenario (node 0), as long as you set the campaign type to FIXED CORE.
From that point you may allocate core force points next to each other node scenario (in the campaign editor) in order to provide the player with more points (expand his core force).
In the first scenario (node 0) you can't assign AUX (or FIX) forces, ONLY CORE forces.
cheers,
p.s here is part of the manual:
The Camo Workshop user campaigns will utilise the first few slots on page, and advance downwards, so you may consider using higher campaign numbers for your own user campaigns.
In Steel panthers 3, you could link up to 12 scenarios in a strictly end to end linear succession to form a user campaign. In SP1 and SP2, there was no way at all to make a campaign of your own design.
As you may have gathered from looking at the above screen shot, the The Camo Workshop WinSPWW2 and WinSPMBT user campaigns allow a lot more flexibility than that! :-). We allow up to 999 scenario nodes in a user campaign, not 12.
Our campaigns are also not linear, the battle result is used to determine the next scenario node to play, hence our campaigns can be 'threaded'.
User campaign editing is not for the faint hearted, it is for experienced scenario designers only. The following is aimed at that target audience, and as a general guide, you will require to experiment to get your campaigns right, much more so than you would with scenario design.
This is a 'live menu' screen. Live menus have 'live text' whenever you put the mouse over the text, most of these text fields are in fact 'buttons'.
Campaign Name, click the campaign name field and enter a new one, default is 'A campaign with no name'.
National Flag, click the flag to change the player's nationality.
Save, Saves the campaign data
Exit, leaves without saving
VICTORY these fields are used to determine the campaign end result in victory points (VP) At the moment 3 VP for a decisive battle victory, 2 for a win, 1 for a draw. (SSI campaign default) [We may change these values if designers think say a 0 1 2 4 8 type sequence is better, in a later release]
ML LEVEL enter the VP score needed to be met to gain a marginal loss of the entire campaign (failure to meet this level is taken as a decisive loss of the campaign)
== LEVEL enter the VP to be met for a draw of the entire campaign
MV LEVEL enter the minimum VP score required to be met to win the campaign marginally
DV enter the VP level which if met or exceeded results in a decisive level of victory for the entire campaign.
As a rule of thumb, count along the 'straight path' through your campaign, and assign perhaps 2.5 to 2.8 points times the number of battles in a row, all at DV exit level to reach the campaign end. So if the quick path through your campaign was say 10 battles, then a VP level of maybe 25 to 28 (out of a possible 30 VP) would be a useful first approximation of the DV level needed to win the campaign decisively, and scale the rest from there, here at 1 point for a draw, perhaps 15 for that level, and the win, but not decisively about half way between the draw and the decisive level.
BPR DIV This stands for 'Build Points Remaining Divisor'. This field gives the designer the ability to reward a player who has a surplus of build points left over at campaign end with a bonus amount of VP. Only unspent Build Points left in the player's 'kitty' count to this total. A player who completes the campaign with unspent Buy Points may have had an easier or more successful run than someone who goes the same set route of battles, but has spent all his points as he went along, either in repairs or upgrades. This bonus therefore rewards the more prudent player (or perhaps the one who uses a smaller core force, and does not expand it much) or the one who completes more missions with less loss, and hence less repairs required. If this field is left at 0, excess Build Points are ignored, only the basic VP are used to determine campaign victory level. If, however this field is set to a positive number, then the amount of Build Points remaining will be divided by this number then the factor is added to the VP total for battles won. For example, entering 1000 here will add 1 VP per full 1000 remaining BP at end of campaign to the VP already gained for winning battles.
Scenario Nodes each node (battle location) has a set of fields:
The Number, At the left hand side, this denotes the node number, But it is also a LIVE FIELD. Pressing a node number field results in that number being entered as a selection, This number is then automatically pasted into any of the Exit fields you then left click on. This saves an awful lot of typing!, simply select node 123 by licking its number field, then fill all the EXIT fields which need 123 in them. A note is placed at the foot of the screen showing the value of the current selection, for your information. Click on this field to clear the selection. A live field is also provided at the foot of the page with 1000 as a value, select this to enter a selection value of 1000, the terminator node number. 1000 in an Exit field of a node is the signal to end the campaign.
Node 0 (the first one on the list) is the Start battle location for the campaign.
Scenario Name, to the right of the Number field. Press this and If the scenario is 'No Scenario' then the list of available scenarios is displayed.
1) The scenario name appears at that battle node number
2) The original scenario is copied as a template, then it is saved off as a campaign scenario file, with a note displayed confirming this. (See campaign files later). Therefore you can reuse the one scenario several times at different node locations, provided that the dates are correct!!
The end user does not require the scenario file to be installed in his scenario directory, you will distribute the scenario data files which contain your nodes scenario data.
IF there is a already scenario name, then pressing again clears the name. (But does not delete the node files generated, you may need to manually delete these if not overwritten with new game data)
Scenario Exit Branches, there are 5 of these for each scenario battle node. From left to right, DL, go to this battle node if the battle was a decisive loss for the player ML, go here if the player lost marginally ==, go to this location if the battle resulted in a draw MV, goto this location if the player has won a marginal victory DV, goto this location if the player won a decisive victory NB, remember that 1000 is the magic number for termination of the entire campaign at that exit point.
These numbers act differently depending on whether or not a selection is 'live' (see Number above). If a selection is live, then the value of the current selection is automatically entered on pressing the exit link field, but if there is no selection currently live, you will be asked to manually enter the number.
Build for Node 0, this will be the initial buy points for the entire campaign, as node 0 is the starting battle. For subsequent nodes, this field is the repair/upgrade points received at the start of that battle. Leaving this field at 0 results in whatever game defaults are in use being used as the basis of calculating the build points for the battle or campaign (if node 0). Entering a positive number results in this amount of points being granted to the user as a maximum, i.e. this is a 'cap' to the number of points granted (if the user has set preferences to a lower level, or his core is small for example, so the game generates a lower number, he will get less than this. If the game generates a larger number, this cap value will be used). Entering a negative number results in what I call a 'locked points' campaign. The user is given this amount of points (returned to him as a positive value!) and this overrides any user set preferences (so if the game decided on say 49 points, but you had entered,55 the player gets 55 whatever the game thinks). Thus a value of,1200 for node 0 gives the player 1200 start points to buy his core, and a value of,123 for battle node 1 will result in him being granted 123 buy points on starting that scenario to build or repair with. This method gives the designer the most control, and removes the problem of someone say selecting 3000 points at the outset of a campaign you designed to start with say 600 points and so destroying your careful balance of battles. (You should mention if a campaign is 'locked' on the introductory text screen for it to notify the end user of the fact.)
Support This field controls the amount of support points granted for each battle to purchase non-core units. Again, leave at 0 to use game defaults, a positive number for your 'recommended' level which the user preferences can override, and a negative value to use as a locked value, which the end user will not be able to override.
Flights This field is used to determine the number of flights made available to player 1 (The human), player 2 (the computer's) flights are whatever you put into his force in the scenario design. -1 uses the current game preferences setting (XXX or whatever the user has entered), 0 is no planes at all, positive numbers allows that number of air strikes.
Variable start lines in user campaigns, when designing the scenario, you can enter a start line which deviates from the normal 25 or 50 of the default battles, use the '%' key in the map editor to assign a start line for usage only in user campaign battles, and only for the human (player No 1). This allows the user campaign designer a latitude of freedom similar to a scenario set up.
Overall though, the best way to find out how the campaign system works is by making and experimenting with a few small test ones, even 2 battle ones. Only a foolish person would dive right in and try a 50 battle mega campaign as a starting point!
User Campaign Design
When using a scenario for a campaign, take care to note that the human player will ALWAYS be player number 1 (i.e. his flag is on the LEFT hand side when the scenario is in the editor).. This does not mean he plays on the left side remember! The player 1 forces for the scenario are REMOVED to be replaced with player bought forces. Player 2 forces will remain. Best to buy an HQ unit anyway for safety.
The name given to the scenario in the Scenario Editor, number of moves, and visibility etc. will all be used. ABOVE ALL, the scenario date will be used for the battle date!, do NOT use a 1939 scenario after a 1944 one, or you will warp back in time! Another date related item, certain nations will use different sides of the battlefield depending on opponent and date. If you use a scenario as a battle location where say the original designer has 'swapped sides' then you can end up with both sides having the same deployment side of the map! The key one that causes confusion is where a scenario was designed for one nation (say USA) as player #1, and you use a different nationality (say USSR) from the original scenario player #1 as the human player nation in the user campaign.
It is therefore best to test each scenario you intend to use in a 'test rig' campaign consisting of precisely 1 battle location, you can use this in succession, replacing the scenario with each of the set you plan to use. Load the scenario to test, save the test campaign and start it, you should quickly determine if it is one where the enemy is on the wrong map side at that date and time. You may need to redo the scenario.
You can reuse a scenario several times over, say if you place it on a different 'thread line' depending on earlier victory or loss situations in the scenario line of progression. If all the parameters stay the same, fine, just use it as it stands. However, you may need to adjust the battle date if the time line for the scenario differs in the new thread. Just load the scenario into the editor, change the date (you could change the name too!), and save in a scratch file, then use that scratch file in your user campaign.
It is not a very good idea to loop backwards in the campaign flow. This could create endless loops, and going back to battle 0 is not likely to be a good idea either. Probably the best idea is to lay down your 'decisive victory' main thread as the first sequence of battles, this will be the series of battles the end user plays should he win decisively in all battles to the campaign end. Use that as the backbone to your campaign design. Then, say, write a thread of battles from the marginal victory of battle 0, and lay this down after the main backbone thread. This thread may rejoin the main thread after a decisive victory, say.
You cannot easily enter (insert in between, rather) new nodes, so do not write a campaign 'on the fly' as you make it up, otherwise you will end up with a tangle of 'spaghetti code' which will be nigh on impossible to maintain. Plan your campaign, and write your battle flow as a proper flow chart on paper first. Also, there are 999 locations here, and most user campaigns will not use anywhere near that number, one idea would be to space your initial nodes apart say 3 or 4 lines, thus leaving space for last minute additions to be inserted later on, without as much grief. Any of you who ever programmed in one of those BASIC compilers which had no 'renumber' command in the editor will know why the default was to number lines with an interval of 10!
User Campaign Files
The campaign data is saved in the /scen directory in the format UCAMPNNN.DAT (User campaign 999 would therefore be Ucamp999.dat) Each battle file for each scenario is saved off in the form CNNNSXXX.DAT (Battle 1 for campaign 0 would therefore be C000s001.dat)
Note, once you have used the 'advance of the guards' scenario as a template in say node 123, the data will be saved off into a separate copy for the scenario, there is no need to supply 'advance of the guards' to the user (unless you really want to). You have distributed it to the user as CNNNSXXX.DAT. If you need to use a particular scenario at different places in your campaign, just place it at each node as required, provided all details (especially the DATE!) will be exactly the same. If, however you need variants of the scenario (even just slightly different dates to fit the campaign 'chain') either, create as many clones and edit them in the editor as required, then link into the campaign in 1 campaign edit session, or just use the one, link and save in the campaign editor once, save the campaign and exit, edit the scenario details as required, exit and save from scenario editor and re enter the campaign editor and link the altered version. That decision is up to you. Also recall, in your scenarios written for campaigns, there will be no need to buy any troops or place them for player 1, bar the HQ say as a placeholder, for these will all be removed from the map in any case.
vBulletin® v3.7.0, Copyright ©2000-2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.