MegaCampaign Bugs please post here!

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Supervisor
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MegaCampaign Bugs please post here!

Post by Supervisor »

This thread is being designed to try and collect as much information about all MegaCampaign problems as possible. So we can try to find a solution and hopefully avoid these type of problems in future releases such as Combat Leader, Close Assualt etc. Issues we know about and can't fix because of the SPWAW code include rankless and lost leaders and OOB issues so there is no need to post these problems. The issues we are interested in are scoring problems, randoms crashes unexplained events and such. Please include as much inormation as possible to include which MegaCampaign, SPWAW version, system spec's, operating system, DirectX version, patches applied, Command & Control preference setting and attempted troubleshooting procedures that were tried to remedy the solution. Thank you.
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Major Destruction
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Post by Major Destruction »

The Mega Campaign is a wonderful idea but it lacks........

I like the challenge of choosing my own force, pitting it against an unknown enemy and watching it progress from one challenge to the next.

The Mega Campaign does not permit this. Each scenario is detached from the previous scenario except in a historical sense. One moment I am commanding a company and the next battle has me using a Battalion.

The problem with not being able to save a battle at any point is a real problem for me. Why can I not save at the end of each turn?

If my mega campaign starts with me buying a company of infantry (or a battalion) that I can nurture and follow through the campaign; to get to know my troops, their commanders and subordinates; and to watch my brave young men advance and be promoted for their accomplishments and valour...............that is the kind of campaign that will interest me.

But to be parachuted into a scenario that has seemingly no real connection with the previous scenario is only a extenuation of the previous battle.........not a progression in time.

To my mind a GREAT campaign would include not only historical detail but also what-if type battles.

If Watchtower had included a core company or if Lost Victories had included a core Battalion I would have enjoyed them more.

Perhaps we are too much interested in the events and not so much interested in the history. ?

Maybe a campaign could be more educational. The power of the computer could allow for more opportunity to learn. Maybe as much effort could be committed to education as to the scenario?Perhaps the meeting of the minds that the internet allows us can allow us to understand events from the perspective of both sides?

After all, history is taught to us differently depending on our nationality.

Maybe a silly little wargame can be better? Maybe it can be significant?


One man's opinion fwiw
They struggled with a ferocity that was to be expected of brave men fighting with forlorn hope against an enemy who had the advantage of position......knowing that courage was the one thing that would save them.

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rbrunsman
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Potapov Strikes won't run

Post by rbrunsman »

For the first time for me a MCLV scenario won't load. After I read the reports and select Option 1, it appears to be looking for OOBs for several seconds, then goes to the start button screen where it shows that both sides will be German for some reason. When I click start it dumps to the desktop. Any suggestions?

I'm using v7.0 from MCLV disc and I've downloaded all official patches for LV and SPWAW. My computer is a Dell ~800MHz running on Windows Me. I've never had a problem before this point and I haven't done anything to the game or my system in weeks. I'm playing 2 PBEMs at this time also. Those are working perfectly.

Help...
Everyone is a potential [PBEM] enemy, every place a potential [PBEM] battlefield. --Zensunni Wisdom
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Post by Supervisor »

Have you upgraded to ver 7.1 or are you still running 7.0 from the LV CD? Whats displayed in the start-up screen.
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rbrunsman
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Post by rbrunsman »

It's 7.1. I thought I made that clear, sorry. I am current on all updates for both SPWAW and MCLV that are available at Matrix's download site.
Everyone is a potential [PBEM] enemy, every place a potential [PBEM] battlefield. --Zensunni Wisdom
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Grenadier
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Post by Grenadier »

What barttle did you do last and what was the result? What battle were you starting and what option , if any, did you choose? Withoiut that information it will be like finding a needle in a haystack
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rbrunsman
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Post by rbrunsman »

Brent, thanks for trying to help but I got it to work last night by using a backup save.

I forget the previous scenario's name, but it was the first one where your troops are upgraded (e.g. 37mm AT to 50mm AT, etc.) and there are tons of trucks and ammo dumps all over the place. I got a DV and moved on to Potapov Strikes and selected Option 1. That was where the problem was. Strange thing though, I went from a DV to a draw in that one turn I had to replay.:mad: Somehow I lost 1000s of points IIRC. I still ended up at Potopov Stikes with the Draw although I appear to have lost those HTs I was given in the previous battle and I don't have the Boeb in my recon platoon anymore either. Was that a consequence of the Draw?

Gmenfan suggested that it was a corrupted .cam(?) file due to not giving the game enough time to save, which is probably what happened.
Everyone is a potential [PBEM] enemy, every place a potential [PBEM] battlefield. --Zensunni Wisdom
simulacrum
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MCLV - Scoring Redux

Post by simulacrum »

Referring to the thread Mega-Campaigns for SP:WaW > Lost Victories – Scoring:

I believe that BIG_AL_UK has a point. I just finished MCLV--Vebber Takes the Point, with No Option. I expected a Decisive Victory, only to have the reported score as 2091 to 888, a “Draw”. When I calculate my score manually, I find that I should have gotten about 3300 for exiting units, 2300 for Control Victory Hexes, 800 for End-of-Game Victory Hexes, and additional for Soviet causalities, for a total exceeding 6500. My causalities were minimal, on the order of 100 points. If I take up BIG_AL_UK’s suggestion that saving somehow eliminates certain accumulated scoring, and recalculate from the turn of my last save, which happened to be the last turn, I get a score very close to that reported by MCLV. Unless there is a big hidden negative scoring impact that I do not see—in this case, of about 4500 points, then, under certain conditions, there is a problem with accumulated scoring and the save function in MCLV. If saving does have this negation effect on accumulated scoring, it will be very deceptive. It will only be noticed when a battle has Control Victory Hexes or Exit Victory Hexes, or other accumulation scoring, the scores for those have gotten to a significant level, and a save is performed. Presumably, if a battle were played through, and not manually saved, these accumulated scores would not be lost. If these conditions were met, this loss of scoring would not be noticed. That could explain the spotty nature of the reporting of this effect.

Additional information: MegaCampaign: MCLV (Vebber Takes the Point—No Option); SPWAW version: 7.1; System specs: 400 MHz, 128 RAM; Operating system: Windows 98; Command & Control: On; Attempted troubleshooting: None.
"Generals and Admirals win high renown for the military achievements of their men, but personal deeds of heroism by simple privates or subalterns are rarely recorded." Albert Lawson, "War Anecdotes and Incidents of Army Life" (Cincinnati: Beasley, 1888)
ivantheterrible
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adding my 2c

Post by ivantheterrible »

simulacrum,

my oberservation is very close to what you stated in your post. The following link is for a previous post I made that's about a LV battle with control victory hex that I saved during the last few turns and I, expecting a DV, nonetheless got a draw.

http://matrixgames.com/forums/showthrea ... post210120

Nowadays, I only save at the beginning of a battle, seldom in the middle or the end, just to avoid such potential scoring problem. I understand that this is taking the risk of system crashing in the midst of a game, but fortunately I have a very stable system (now SPWAW only crashes maybe once or twice a month) I can get away with it :D :D
simulacrum
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Post by simulacrum »

ivantheterrible,

Thanks for the reply. I see that your previous post is the last in the thread that begins with BIG_AL_UK. Unfortunately, not saving periodically during single battles is not a realistic option for me. Invariably, I need to save late in the battle. What I need is a fix that preserves accumulated scoring and that does not require not saving.
"Generals and Admirals win high renown for the military achievements of their men, but personal deeds of heroism by simple privates or subalterns are rarely recorded." Albert Lawson, "War Anecdotes and Incidents of Army Life" (Cincinnati: Beasley, 1888)
simulacrum
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Lost Scoring Related Threads

Post by simulacrum »

Restated link to the thread mentioned above:

showthread.php?s=&threadid=19602

Link to an earlier thread that comes to a similar conclusion:

showthread.php?s=&threadid=8318
"Generals and Admirals win high renown for the military achievements of their men, but personal deeds of heroism by simple privates or subalterns are rarely recorded." Albert Lawson, "War Anecdotes and Incidents of Army Life" (Cincinnati: Beasley, 1888)
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Warhorse
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Icon weirdness in WT with DD's and Transports?

Post by Warhorse »

Has anyone besides Gmenfan had a problem with the DD's and Transports in the MC:WT? He was getting green Merkava plows instead of the ships, seems he didn't have the updated icons, and I'm trying to find out if they were missed in the archive! Mine of course are fine, since I made them, but has anyone else experienced this?
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Post by Supervisor »

Mike it was sg who first brought it to my attention. I posted the porper 0054 and 0154 icon in this thread so he could fix it.Watchtower Icon bug
Antonius
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PBEM scoring & branching bug

Post by Antonius »

Have started Desert Fox in PBEM mode (we hope to end before the year 2020 ! ;) )

Around the turn 17 of the first scen my Germans were controlling all flags, had taken an "acceptable" level of losses and thus were preparing a beer & sausage party to celebrate their victory.

But when I got my opponent's turn back I briefly saw a score tally stating the Germans had 0 points and the British 5000 and then I was ordered to dig in to repel the British counter-attack after the disastrous performance of my troops :eek:

So it seems
a) the Germans were not given any points for kills (but maybe that is part of the scen design)
b) in any case the victory points for the flags had been transferred from the Germans to the British

To prevent the campaign from ending prematurely, I reloaded an old of the previous turn and replayed it with AI-controlled British and this time got the expected German victory. So the practical lesson is that in PBEM mode the last turn should always be played against an AI-controlled opponent.
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Anthony_MatrixForum
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Gmenfan - help please !

Post by Anthony_MatrixForum »

If someone there with good contacts in matrix ( Gmenfan ?) can give me some solid details about how the scoring is stored in the games files ( i.e. data offsets in the file) then I will have a look
to see if I can find any more info to help with scoring problem issue. Also any details about how the scores are calcul;ated
would be great

I have tried to see what happens if I compare a game file before and after a vic hex is taken, but there where dozens of changed bits in the saved files......

The problems are getting worse in MCLV , as many battles use
vic hexs with per turn scoring and exit hexes - also now the latest battles do not seem to be scoring kills that happen before the game was saved !

Thanks for any help,
happy to goto email for further discussion on the issue
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Post by Supervisor »

The problem is in the auto save routine. It cropped up with the ever changing game engine and and *.dat files from the MegaCampaigns. What is happening is all points gained by a player are being lost between saves to where the overall points gained aren't being cumuliative they are only getting creditted from where the last save started. There is no way in a PBEM Mega type game to fix it but there was an unproven method that might work in solitare mode, I want to test it before I post the how too.
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Post by Anthony_MatrixForum »

I am happy to help you test if you like

Anthony
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Post by Supervisor »

I have to try and remember the steps first, it had something to do with just prior to saving alt tabing out of the game making a backup up the save in use, but I don't remeber how to reimpliment that backup save back inot the gamefor the next turn. One thing that does work but it's long is to play an entire battle completely out before saving, then all points gained don't get lost in between. Let me do some searching and asking around and if I find something I'll let you know.
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Post by Antonius »

are you sure this applies to PBEM saves too ?

in my last battle report (the one with the German victory) the british did have some points even though I lost no unit in the last turn. I remember they seemed to have too few points to account for my losses in the whole battler but that is consistent with the auto-save bug as I played some turns in several sessions.
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some pbem testing

Post by Antonius »

Since I was beginning to fear that the auto-save problem might ruin any mega-campaign PBEMing, I replayed battle 1 of desert fox against my-self.

All I did was with the Germans was sending the planes early in the battle to kill some Brits and made sure the last turn was played with the opponent set to AI (see my post on page 1).
The End tally did give me 88 points, which I believe would be the right German score for destroying a truck or two, a bren carrier, a gun and some inf casualties.

Let's say I'm relieved !
Wargamo, ergo sum
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