Changing aircraft availability dates mid-game

[WriterNotViking]

I am in my first game, it's late May 1942 and my Dutch air groups are running out of planes. Most of the NEI is still firmly in Allied hands, and as I'm Dutch myself, I have a sentimental interest in keeping the Dutch in fighting form, preferably without having to restart the game. The Editor won't let me change the scenario I am playing, which is the first. I circumvented this by copying the files elsewhere, renaming them and editing them this way before copying back. When I load my saved game, I'm prompted to approve a database update, which fails.

Does anyone know a way to change the end date for availability of aircraft types that does not involve starting a new game? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Misconduct]

Well you would need to modify the game, after early 42 the DEI was captured and there wasn't any Dutch bases. Let alone a need for reinforcements.

Modified game = you'd have to modify it and start over.

[WriterNotViking]

Thank you for your response. You are indeed correct regarding the historical course of events. Regarding the method I described in my original post, would you, or anyone else for that matter, know why the database update fails?

[oldman45]

It is a safe guard put in place to prevent cheating in PBEM games.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: WriterNotViking
Does anyone know a way to change the end date for availability of aircraft types that does not involve starting a new game? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

There's two answers to this:
1) For Scenarios 01 to 25 - No. These are "official" scenarios and have a special checksum that insures they can never be changed in an ongoing game. Twice-in-a-lifetime, there might be an "official" DATA patch. This has special code that evaluates and rewrites the checksum appropriately. Both players in a PBEM MUST do an "official" data update on the same turn, because the PBEM engine looks closely at checksums, and if they don't match the turn is "locked". That's it. There is no recourse. You start a game with Scenario 01 to 25, and that data is you what will have until the end, and there is nothing you can do about it. This prevents cheating and keeps games clean.

2) For Scenarios 26 and up - Yes. These are "mod" scenarios; the game exe still looks at checksums and give alerts when different, but does not invoke the "lock" routine. Only certain elements of data can be updated without causing problems; ONLY those things that are not effected by game-play. Airplane availability is not something that game-play changes, so it is something that could be dinked with and updated. In order to do this, one MUST be playing a scenario with number 26 or higher. So open Scen01 in the editor, then save-as Scen41, 51, 101, whatever. Then play Scen41. Just be sure you edit Scen41 when you are tweaking and carefully read and follow the alert messages on the screen.

[WriterNotViking]

Thank you, oldman45 and JWE, for your responses. It seems the Dutch are out of luck, then. Nevertheless, I appreciate your assistance.

EDIT: I feel perhaps I should mention that the game in question is being played against the AI, and no cheating was intended.

[Misconduct]

ORIGINAL: WriterNotViking


Thank you, oldman45 and JWE, for your responses. It seems the Dutch are out of luck, then. Nevertheless, I appreciate your assistance.

EDIT: I feel perhaps I should mention that the game in question is being played against the AI, and no cheating was intended.

Its understandable, I figured for you to hold the DEI it must of been the AI, my best suggestion, is to restart and modify the game - now doing so, I suggest if you are planning on playing the AI give it some added bonuses.

For example I do have a modified version of the Reluctant Admiral where it gives the Japanese a substantial amount of reinforcements, however the allies do get a 5% perk bonus in aircraft delivered.

It would make quite a nice game against the AI (I imagine as the allies, Japanese however would be way to overpowered against the Allied AI).

Only thing you'd need to do is bump the production of the B-239 for a few months or in fact give it 1 month with say...100 frames built? I know its not historically accurate, however you also can modify whether you can "move" those units (as they are now you cannot move them off DEI) However you would be able to move them to say... Darwin, and use those Dutch units to re-take the DEI later in the game.

Just some fuel for ya:)

[WriterNotViking]

Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely intend to play around with the editor before starting my next game, and making the AI a bit more challenging would make for a much more entertaining experience. I'll keep these ideas in mind for when I do.