Campaign Series: Forgotten Battles 2.0 Available Now

[Warhorse]

Ahh, that could very well be the culprit!! There is a utility to check scenario's, called CSLINT, but not sure if it will work if you say put those scennies in a folder by thereself to check out, one-by-one. I'de be willing to bet that is the problem, my friend!!

Merry Christmas, BTW, I have VASL, but haven't done anything with that in years, all free time being spent on modding and the development team!!

[Zovs]

Maybe over the next week or so you could post a link to that cslint thing?

I still have the original Talonsoft EF, EF2, CG disk1 stuff, lol. Hopefully all that has been updated in the Matrix edition?

[berto]

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

... what happens is when I select a scenario (any) to play is when the white screen of death happens ...

In the next (February) update, I have implemented a new logging facility that will detect and record if a file is missing (or misnamed, etc.) -- a common cause of "white screen of death" crashes.

Example (from West Front):

---

berto@telemann:/games/matrix/cs/devel/work/Logs_B8rto> egrep "ERROR|WARNING" *.log

109th.scn_engine.log:2013-12-24 13:57:04 wf.exe: [ID 100 WARNING] starshell.bmp not found
109th.scn_engine.log:2013-12-24 13:57:05 wf.exe: [ID 100 WARNING] NWE-main.pdx not found
...
Abiod.scn_engine.log:2013-12-21 13:43:07 wf.exe: [ID 100 WARNING] MED-main.pdx not found
...

---

This will be a great help in diagnosing many crash situations.

I will be writing up the new logging facility in a forthcoming Coder Diary.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Warhorse

There is a utility to check scenario's, called CSLINT, but not sure if it will work if you say put those scennies in a folder by thereself to check out, one-by-one.

No, CSlint requires a full game installation, with everything in its usual place.

So far, CSlint is available to the Dev Team only. (@Warhorse: CSlint development, including extending the scenario checker, csscnchk.pl, is my highest priority over the next week or two.) We might make CSlint publicly available, but maybe as a separate utility, apart from the standard game install package. It's undecided yet.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

I need to uninstall my JTCG and then reinstall it from scratch again and then reapply the patch, losing all my saved games.

Why would JSGME (or anything else) muck with your save game files? What's to stop you from copying/pasting all *.btl (etc.) files to a safe place before reinstalling from scratch?

[Zovs]

Thanks for the update.

In my frustration, I just wiped it all clean since I really had no idea what was not working anymore.

No big deal, only 3 lost CG which I had not got very far in, all the better to try again.

Looking forward to the next release.

[Warhorse]

My bad about Cslint, forgot it was for devel only... I sometimes forget where I am posting, devel or main forum, sorry!!

[Crossroads]

As of MCS version 2.02, available now as a User Modification:

Warhorse Production together with Battle Kat Entertainment proudly present:



Campaign Series: The Forgotten Battles 2.0

Campaign Series: The Forgotten Battles is a mod focusing on minor nations, and the battles they fought, buried in annals of history, but forgotten no more!

When installed, this Add-on modification will absolutely not affect any stock or custom scenario.
Worth a repeat: none of the existing games you have or are about to start will be affected.

Forgotten Battles 2.0 continues to boldly go where no Campaign Series scenario has gone before:

The mod has its roots on East Front, where in its previous versions it added a couple of new nations such as Allied Finland, and enhancing other nations such as early war Poland units and adding Bulgarian troops and partisans. Not just about minor nations, 'What-Ifs' were supported also in a form of adding an Allied Germany, and migrating the French, UK and US OoBs from West Front to East Front.

Some of the early content from the various Forgotten Battles 1.x versions made it to MCS 2.00 UPGRADE, while other content remains proprietary to this mod, such as the medical units that are still not ready for prime time.

New East Front Game Content

Forgotten Battle 2.0 proudly presents the World Premiere of the first 2D Project results to EF. New and enhanced graphics and a thorough upgrade to their OoB is provided for:

- EF Russia
- EF Germany
- EF Italy
- EF Rumania,
- EF Hungary
- EF Finland,
- EF Slovakia, and
- EF Poland, including the addition of LWP organizations and units for a full 1939-1945 unit roster timeline.

New West Front Game Content

While 2.0 is still mostly about East Front, we are looking forward to try more new things out with West Front and Rising Sun too.

Included in the WF add-on are:

- WF Polish Army in Britain and WF Polish Army in France OoBs.

New Rising Sun Game Content

Rising Sun? Stay tuned!

About this User Modification

Campaign Series: The Forgotten Battles continues to be a User Mod. It will have its issues and errors, which, when reported to us, we will fix if not sooner then later. It is packaged to go under Campaign Series User Modifications folder (/Mods), and it should be installed and uninstalled only via the JSGME mod management tool.

Your continuous co-operation and support is appreciated!


Installation

See Game Manual pp 123-125 about activating User Modification content on your Campaign Series Installation.

As part of Forgotten Battles 2.0 release, two new User Modifications are available to be enabled via the JSGME graphical User Interface:

ALL - Forgotten Battles 2.0
EF - Polish LWP Insignia and Scenarios Mod

The recommended installation procedure is to first enable Forgotten Battles 2.0. Then, when playing Polish People's Army scenarios, please enable the Polish LWP Insignia and Scenarios Mod for the duration of that game play.

NOTE: Once enabling Polish LWP Insignia and Scenarios Mod when Forgotten Battles 2.0 is already enabled, the JSGME interface will warn you about overwriting the icons2d07.BMP file. Please accept the overwrite via pressing YES.

[Warhorse]

Crap, I didn't plan on making those scenario's public yet, my apologies to Marcin...[:(]

[dudalb_slith]

I installed Forgotten Battles 2.0 ,it seemed to install...the menu has Forgotten Battles 2.0 on it, but no new scenarios showed up in the game.
I ended up downloanding them separtly,installed them as usual, and they play fine. Just a littler concerned because I assumed some were included in the Forgotten Battles download.

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: dudalb

I installed Forgotten Battles 2.0 ,it seemed to install...the menu has Forgotten Battles 2.0 on it, but no new scenarios showed up in the game.
I ended up downloanding them separtly,installed them as usual, and they play fine. Just a littler concerned because I assumed some were included in the Forgotten Battles download.

Sorry, just saw this. It sounds you have a legit install there. No scenarios included in the install, all my and Warhorse's for an example are available from the Blitz Scenario Database.

The only scenarios included are the LWP Polish scenarios in the LWP mod, that I mistakenly included there.

[Crossroads]

PATCH time, unfortunately. I had missed pretty much all the French and UK airplane BIT files when migrating the files from West Front to East Front.

This will cause a East Front crash upon a Airstrike using either nations airplanes as the bit file containing the plane's shadow is not found.

Patch available here: => LINK REMOVED, INSTALL PATCH2 INSTEAD

Installation:

1) Disable Forgotten Battles 2.0 using JSGME

2) Download the zip file, unarchive, place the *.bit files into:
[font=Courier] C:\Matrix Games\John Tiller's Campaign Series\Mods\ALL - Forgotten Battles 2.0\East Front[/font]

3) Enable Forgotten Battles 2.0 using JSGME

[Crossroads]

I've not only missed the UK and France Airplane BIT files when migrating the files from West Front to the East Front side of things, but US airplane BIT files as well.

This will cause a East Front crash upon a Airstrike using any of these nation's airplanes as the bit file containing the plane's shadow is not found, with error message: Failure to create primary surface

Patch 2, including contents of Patch1 as well (you only need patch2) available here: => LINK

INSTALLATION:

1) Disable Forgotten Battles 2.0 using JSGME

2) Download the zip file, unarchive, place the *.bit files into: [font="Courier New"]C:\Matrix Games\John Tiller's Campaign Series\Mods\ALL - Forgotten Battles 2.0\East Front[/font]

3) Enable Forgotten Battles 2.0 using JSGME

[rjantzi]

Hi, I have a few questions regarding the Forgotten Battles 2.0 Mod.
1) When I go to install this mod using JSGME I get a warning message that says there a potential conflict with other mods that I currently have installed. Specifically, the EF & WF Unit Bases and the PanzerBlitz/PanzerLeader User interfaces. The message says that if I proceed with installing the Forgotten Battles Mod it, "may have adverse effects on your game". At this point I've declined to continue with the installation as I like using these other mods. I'm wondering if you've checked the Forgotten Battles mod for compatibility with the other mods or if I have to disable these others before proceeding with the installation?
2) Are the scenarios for the Forgotten Battles suitable for playing against the AI or are they H2H only?
3) What's the easiest way to find these scenarios in The Blitz database? I've tried searching for "Forgotten Battles" in the Campaign Series section but that only shows me 3 scenarios.

[Crossroads]

Hello rjantzi:

ORIGINAL: rjantzi
Hi, I have a few questions regarding the Forgotten Battles 2.0 Mod.
1) When I go to install this mod using JSGME I get a warning message that says there a potential conflict with other mods that I currently have installed. Specifically, the EF & WF Unit Bases and the PanzerBlitz/PanzerLeader User interfaces. The message says that if I proceed with installing the Forgotten Battles Mod it, "may have adverse effects on your game". At this point I've declined to continue with the installation as I like using these other mods. I'm wondering if you've checked the Forgotten Battles mod for compatibility with the other mods or if I have to disable these others before proceeding with the installation?

This is actually a generic warning, that JSGME gives out when two mods touch the same files. Let me give you a silly example. There's two mods: Brown Water Hexes and Green Water Hexes. You first enable the Brown Water Hexes, as you want too see brown water instead of the stock blue. Then, you enable the Green Water Hexes, which will give you this warning as it changes the same terrain bitmap files as Brown Water Hexes. This, in effect then has an "adverse effect on your game", as although you also have Brown Water Hexes first enabled, you will only see Green Water Hexes as they are the last to go in. JSGME also greyed out Brown Water Hexes, so you have to take them out in reverse order. Last one to go in must be the first one out.

In your case: Forgotten Battles has its own versions of Main East Front and West Front Menus. So instead of the PB/PL Main Menus you'd see Forgotten Battle 2.0 menu instead.

If you absolutely want to (and who wouldn't!) see PB / PL user interface instead, disable all mods, then put in Forgotten Battles first, PB/PL UI next. PB/PL Mod having gone in last prevails, when same files are touched.

Hope this helped, it is a bit confusing when trying to explain, but hopefully obvious once you try them out

ORIGINAL: rjantzi
2) Are the scenarios for the Forgotten Battles suitable for playing against the AI or are they H2H only?

Check the scenario description. The scenarios I've created for Forgotten Battles are mostly for Human-vs-Human, in which case if you want to play vs AI I suggest you take the attacking side, and allow AI to be on defensive.

ORIGINAL: rjantzi
3) What's the easiest way to find these scenarios in The Blitz database? I've tried searching for "Forgotten Battles" in the Campaign Series section but that only shows me 3 scenarios.

My scenarios are all under "Arctic Front" in EF. There are others as well. Here's a scenario introduction post from Blitz that for most part should be up to date: LINK

I hope you enjoy them!

[rjantzi]

That answers all my questions. Thanks a lot.

[rjantzi]

I've downloaded one of the scenarios and unzipped it. I have 4 files (bitmap image, org, scn, & map). I've put all 4 files into the EF folder but I'm not seeing the scenario when I go to the scenario selection screen. Did I do something wrong?

[Warhorse]

Try in the scenario selection screen, hit the button next to scenario designer name, look for Battle Kat! They are very hard to find otherwise!! Hope this helps!!

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: Warhorse

Try in the scenario selection screen, hit the button next to scenario designer name, look for Battle Kat! They are very hard to find otherwise!! Hope this helps!!

I probably should use just one callsign in all the forums I participate in... I need to think about this.

[rjantzi]

Thanks, that did the trick.