Thoughts on the 1938 Campaign

[Kriegsspieler]

Recently I gave the 1938 campaign a spin, and found it both intriguing and slightly disappointing. It was intriguing because it did allow a player (I was playing as the Allies) some choices in how to prepare for the war, but it was disappointing in how few choices you were actually permitted. Mostly the 1938 part of the campaign consisted of watching the historical sequence of events play themselves out. It seems to me that if we're going to go to the trouble of taking the game as far back as the beginning of 1938, an idea which I applaud, then players should have more room to shape the balance of their forces, prioritize research over force readiness, and so on. I don't know if a slightly more sandboxey environment would require some substantial reworking of the basic game engine, but I would like to encourage that such a direction be taken. It would give players more incentive to begin in 1938.

My other thought concerns what seems to me to be a slightly bumpy transition from the 1938 campaign to the main game in September of 1939. I saw to my surprise that when the Germans begin their attack on Poland they leave the western border with France largely unguarded, making it quite easy for the French simply to advance towards the Ruhr. There were a number of other surprising developments as well, such as Germany declaring war on Switzerland before they had even finished Poland off, and Italy entering the game by declaring war on Syria and therefore on France. When I restarted the game and checked the available scripts, I saw why this was the case, with dozens and dozens of scripts activated for all sorts of plausible and implausible variants from the historical war. This came as a big surprise, especially when one considers that the number of scripts activated for the main campaign are quite few, apart from the many decision events that pop up at fairly predictable times.

So if this mod gets further refinement in the future -- and I really think it should for the reasons stated above -- I wonder if it would be possible to switch off the more improbable historical variants on the start-up menu, allowing the player to have a certain amount of freedom without having to prepare for odd developments like the invasion of Switzerland.

[PvtBenjamin]

My main concern is that it just has way way way ( I mean way)too many units.

Couldn't get past that.

[DeriKuk]

The logical place to start a prequel scenario is not 1938. The political climate at the time was still "peace in our time". Yes, there is room for political maneuvering; e.g., there was a lot of tensions between eastern European states and nation, and there was even a possibility of Poland being a German ally. The Anschluss could fire as an event, but the real war only started in March 1939 with the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia.

[James Taylor]

What would really be attractive is a game built on the 1936 Rhineland occupation as the beginning. Starting forces for all the various majors would be next to nothing, requiring the players to build almost all their own armed forces or prioritize the other facets of the game.

The creator would need to slow down research and connect national morale to certain events and/or declarations of war to inhibit grossly exaggerated actions.

[LordOfPants]

Yeah, I usually play on a laptop which has no problem running the actual game, but the sheer number of units in the 1938 game made it slow to a crawl, which is really boring since you mostly make one or two decisions, then hit next turn.

[Kriegsspieler]

Yes, of course seeing the game rolled back to a beginning in 1936 would be fine as well, but really the key for me is to loosen up the number of things the player can do, so that you are not resigned to passively watching all the historical events fire.

[PvtBenjamin]

You can create your own 1936 or 1938 scenario with whatever parameters you would like. If thats your thing.

Way to much work for me.

[James Taylor]

Back in the SC1 days it was a lot easier. Now you need a group effort, especially a good script writer.

[GiveWarAchance]

My game doesn't have 1938 campaign. The earliest is 1939.
Is it a new patch that puts it in?
I can't get the latest update cause it keeps failing. Maybe it is cause the internet here is unreliable.

[PvtBenjamin]

ORIGINAL: GiveWarAchance

My game doesn't have 1938 campaign. The earliest is 1939.
Is it a new patch that puts it in?
I can't get the latest update cause it keeps failing. Maybe it is cause the internet here is unreliable.

Its in a the community content pack, it includes a few custom scenarios

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you Benjamin.
I don't know how to get that pack, but it sounds like the 1938 scenario has far too many units. I like the number of units in the usual 1939 campaign which seems realistic. I'm not good at dealing with a lot of detail.

[PvtBenjamin]

Not sure if this is the most recent link

http://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/Strategi ... -v1.10.zip


The '38 scenario probably has 10-20x the '39 scenario. I couldn't get thru 2 turns.

There are some other custom scenarios in the pack

[GiveWarAchance]

Thank you Benjamin.